The rise of the selfies
A selfie is a photo from mild to wild that a girl takes of herself with a digital camera or phone, then invariably posts it on some social network site.
There are two kinds of selfies. Sometimes the selfie is taken in a mirror; other times when the camera is at arms-length. Then there are the double selfies when the photographer and her friend are in the shot.
Selfies came into their own when cell phones began adding camera capabilities around 2004 but they really took off when smartphones hit in 2007.
Girls could have been taking selfies for years but they didn’t. If I had told a girl in school to take a self-shot of herself, she’d have thought I was nuts. They never thought of it for a second. And there was no internet. Who would see them?
Cameras the size of smartphones and smaller have been around for decades but the exposed film needed processing and that was 24 hours at the quickest, although Polaroid cameras produced instant prints.
Ease of use and immediate gratification is what attracts girls to selfies plus the websites to show themselves to the world. The latest digital cameras and smartphones can even show the subject what the picture will look like before she takes it.
Today, girls are camera-crazy and the smartphone is responsible for it.
Social scientists are just now beginning to study this exploding phenomenon.
I like seeing SCORELAND models’ selfies. It’s just not easy for them to get their boobs in the shot.
Krystal Swift pops a selfie.