A selfie is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a hand-held digital camera or camera phone. Selfies are often shared on social networking services such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Tumblr. They are often casual, and are typically taken either with a camera held at arm’s length or in a mirror (Selfie). Monday mornings or Saturday nights, on every continent, 24/7, people are looking into their own lens and capturing just what they want. Sober or drunk, celebratory or melancholy, across religious or societal divides, beyond age or racial groups it matters not, the #selfie is taken through the appropriate filter and posted on a splattering of social media sites. It’s estimated that over 17 million selfies are posted every week: 35 million on Instagram alone. Are selfies evidence of a new wave of narcissistic behavior? Proof we have become a ME ME ME world?

Dare I remind you of the photo booth? How many of us spent our well-guarded allowance inside those finicky and fun booths, capturing a series of our own funny faces? I, and this will not come as a surprise to any Nine Cent Girl fans, am thrilled with the #selfie phenomenon, to a point, and am ready to tell you why.

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