Thanks to social media and the smartphone, June 21st recognizes a form of self-portrait that couldn’t exist without them; It’s National Selfie Day! We are encouraged to take creative (appropriate) selfies and share them on social media.

The first-ever selfie was taken in 1839. While not termed as such then, the self-portrait was taken by Robert Cornelius, an amateur chemist and photography enthusiast, in Philadelphia. Cornelius took a picture of himself in the back of his family’s chandelier store. He set up the camera and then ran into the frame for the picture, thus having taken the first-ever ‘selfie’.

I think that most people will agree that people who take selfies all day are annoying. They always have these amazing profile pics and look utterly fantastic. It’s like they took thousands of images to get just the right one and it’s so frustrating!

We admit it, we’re jealous we’re not able to take such a perfect selfie, ours always come out looking like they were taken by a pigeon landing on a discarded camera. That’s ok though! On Selfie Day you can take the time to take a thousand photos to get just the right one, and not feel ashamed!

Selfies have probably existed as long as hand-held cameras have been a thing. Human vanity is so utterly profound that if we’re given the opportunity to do something self-aggrandizing, we do. This habit, in our defense, doesn’t seem to be strictly human in nature.

Given access to a camera and a little time to figure it out, monkeys will start snapping selfies like no one’s business. In 2014, BBC officially declared a Selfie Day, which amusingly heralded a sudden decline in selfies. Interestingly, there was a similar drop after the Oxford English Dictionary added ‘selfie’ to its pages. Apparently making something official is a damned fine way of making sure no one wants to do them anymore.

But don’t let that worry you, we’re pretty sure the selfie is definitely here to stay, especially since there have been a series of inventions to make it easier to do. From the ‘selfie-stick’ to the write mounted drone that will take flight and snap a photo of you on request, selfie technology is getting more advanced every day.

Why are selfies good for you?

Well, maybe, just maybe we can get that golden hour lighting that illuminates our skin taking it to a level of pure flawlessness, then that is certainly something to celebrate. Many humans look at selfies in shock, “Is that really how I look?” and the truth of the matter is that a selfie, just the same as many photos, allows us to see ourselves how we actually look, symmetrically speaking of course.

When we sit down and admire ourselves in the mirror on a morning, we see a mirror image, which is not what our fellow humans see when they look at us. So it’s a common problem when taking selfies, as we see ourselves the correct way round, leading us to believe that we look totally different, when in fact we look a truer version of ourselves. Ready to pack it all in now? Don’t panic, it gets better. Cameras after all are not really a true definition of 3D life, so when we look good in reality and not in photos, it may be down to lighting, the quality of the camera, or just that you’re not that photogenic! Trust us, it is a thing!

When we take selfies, we have the option now to change our faces, add filters, edit our flaws and so on, and so forth, but have you ever stopped to really look at the positives of selfies? Not only do they highlight our flaws but also our beauty. Look at the color of your eyes, did you realize they were so blue? Did you ever notice the rim of amber in the middle? Perhaps you might look at your nose and look at how cute and upturned the tip is, or the way your hair falls, these are all things to celebrate about our looks and about our selfies. A selfie is a great way to capture moments when you’re traveling alone also. It’s safer (and wiser), to take a selfie sometimes than to ask a stranger to take the photo for you. Most likely they will be a good samaritan and you may even strike lucky and get an ‘Instagram husband’ to take the shot for you, grabbing snapshots at every angle, but taking a photo yourself allows you to remember that moment, of how you were feeling and where you were. That again, is something to celebrate, is it not?

You know it is! 😉