Yes, self-obsession is now an industry. Every smartphone launched in the recent past now comes with a separate selfie camera on the front. The hottest selling accessory in 2014 was the selfie stick, the extendable rod that clips onto a smartphone and allows users to shoot pictures of themselves or groups from a height.
There are an incredible 970 selfie apps on the iTunes App store! The majority are photo editing suites for removing blemishes, adding text and fine-tuning images but some can even turn selfies into cartoon avatars. Other niche apps, such as Selfie +, claim to “sell your selfies to the press and media”. American reality TV star Kim Kardashian, the one-woman superbrand, is about to publish a book called Selfish, which will feature “racy” selfies she has shot. A number of institutions including London’s Tate and V&A museums, have regular courses by specialist photographers in what are called selfie schools to teach people how to perfect their self-shots. Further, the highest-ranked How to take the perfect selfie videos on YouTube have achieved well over 2 million views, which has net the content creators substantial revenues. Now, we have the selfie flash. Unveiled at the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by Lenovo, it fills the one gap remaining in the art of taking selfies—proper lighting. Lenovo’s new selfie flash uses 8 LEDs to bring out natural color tones, even in low light conditions. Vanity clearly has no limits.
