I’ve watched (and many of you out there have also noticed) the #selfie has taken over social media like a flu in a public school. From duck face masters to celeb facials, bathroom fitness shots and driver’s seat morning smiles with your coffee – self-indulgent personal photos have clearly shown how vain our society has become.
It was inevitable. This generation was bred to know they were important, could grow up to be whatever they wanted to be, and told they were special. I’m not judging, though, not completely. I mean, I have my fair share of self portraits online. And I’m sure many of you reading this do, too. Pictures with your dogs, showing off your Halloween costumes, showcasing your eyeliner you finally got right, or even just sharing the cute outfit you bought. Heck, I even get daily Snapchat selfies from friends, who I assume are bored and just not sure what else to do. Either way, they’re all #selfies… and half of them probably have a duck face in it.
Most of us in our late 20s still remember when having a MySpace account was cool (and supposed to be for musicians) before it got creepy and we mastered how to take pictures without showing our face. A sort of non-selfie, I guess.
We were excited when our colleges got the clearance to be a part of the Facebook universe and when a status was a game of fill-in-the-blank. (Roni is ….) And then Twitter came out, we thought it was just a space to post multiple status updates. A simple text-only selfie.
And finally, Instagram gave us the ultimate platform. Just pictures, and a way to even search for others with the same obsession, a hashtag. Oh, indulge us with your friendly faces. (I’ve already mentioned Snapchat, we’ll leave it at that.)
Then I recently heard this on the radio: #selfie by The Chainsmokers. What a way to capitalize on this trend. (You know selfie even made it into the dictionary, right?) And the music video has selfies in it, culled from the Internet and probably one of the most ingenious marketing ideas ever. Why wouldn’t you rewatch the video to see if your photo made it? (Okay, I actually like the beat and think the song is funny, but I’m not even spending time trying to see the individual images in the video.)
But I digress. I have much more important things to do… like go take a #selfie.
