Why do we love taking photos of ourselves

Selfie - a word not known to anybody a decade ago, in 2013 was recognised as the most popular word of the year. Today, selfie raised so much controversy and is the hottest topic of debate that it has been treated as a word describing the whole generation.

How to make a perfect selfie is the most searched phrase in google, while the most popular Instagram accounts are those packed with selfies. What is the reason behind the phenomenon of the new generation of self portraits?

How to make a good selfie - why Millennials are digital narcissists?

Selfie is considered a phenomenon that determines the generation of Millennials. Although they are slowly becoming a thing of past and the increasing number of producers are focusing on the generation Z, the truth is selfie is a crux of people born between 1984 and 1997. Why exactly them? It is the first generation that grew up in the age of the digital revolution.

Millennials is also a generation that lives at a high rate, surrounded by material goods, purchased with money earned in expanding international corporations. The culture of materialism and a simultaneous attempt to find an own place in the new digital reality has led to the widespread phenomenon of narcissism that characterizes generation Y.

A person who profusely wrote about this topic is a researcher Magdalena Szpunar, an author of the book The Culture of Digital Narcissism. She established a theory that Millennials show narcissistic features that result from an attitude to the individual success, turning away from previous generation values (such as religion, family, social solidarity) and from a strong need to satisfy their own egos.

The culture of digital narcissism refers to the Internet and to a narcissistic view of yourself. Facebook gave us the first opportunity to share our lives, but there’s no doubt it was Instagram that became a narcissistic sanctuary, bursting with selfies to this day. What’s the reason then?

Instagram is a place where we unabashedly share our whole lives, but often filtered to show only their good aspects. A positive trend which has become increasingly popular in recent time, is to show life as it is in real life. In this case, self-portraits are not ideal and no one asks how to take a good selfie. Only realness, spontaneity and authenticity count. And it can still be seen on Instagram. It doesn’t change the fact that the sole idea of sharing photos and self-portraits is still based on a broadly understood narcissism and the need to attract the attention of others.

How to look good in photos?

A champion in this field is obviously Kim Kardashian. She is also a strong endorser of the perfect selfie trend, who even published a book of her selfies. A number of selfies in the web is apparently boosted by Kardashian-Jenner family that certainly helped the culture of narcissism grow and contributed to the increase in selfies. Bloggers and influencers spend a lot of time on taking perfect photos, and at the same time they suggest how to look good in photos. What’s important? Firstly, proper light, because it can give your skin glow and make you look like you came back from a vacation. It’s crucial to stand in front of the source of light, coming directly at your face.

How to look good in photos? Instagrammers also recommend choosing a more favorable profile of the face and placing the camera slightly above the face. Never take a photo from below, because it will highlight all the imperfections, including the double chin, even if you do not notice it on a daily basis. It is also worth paying attention to the background and the so-called second-plan masters. It's easy to share something that we would like to hide and which will quickly destroy the image of our perfect selfie. Unless we want to do it in an authentic trend, then all the piles of clothes on a chair or a sink full of dirty dishes can add a real charm and go out for good.