I don’t know about you, but I like to believe that Mr. Bean invented the selfie. I have been a religious fan of his ever since I was a little girl and I still am. Matter of fact, I am always ready when he and his stuffed teddy of a best friend come on on Universal or BBC Entertainment channel on Dstv. I sit there with my baby sister who is five, and we laugh our ribs off like two little kids. I digress.
Mr. Bean was a master of the selfie way before people decided to that making a duck face was a cool thing. He would take them while driving his car, while standing next to the English guard who for some reason never seemed to move a muscle, not even if there was a fly threatening to get into his nose. Once, he (Mr. Bean) even took a selfie at someone’s funeral, next to the coffin!
Many years later, the selfie has become extremely popular, it has got everyone, from Karanja to Kardashian doing it. If you do not believe me, type in ‘selfie’ on Google or Instagram and see the tens of thousands of posts that will pop up from all over the world. But why the great popularity?
For starters, taking a selfie is a ridiculously easy thing to do, it is a DIY kind of task. You do not need much-just a camera and yourself, posing in whatever pose you deem fit, which explains why phone manufacturing companies are now focusing on increasing megapixel capacity of front cameras because the selfie has made it a key consideration for selfie faithful looking to buy a phone.
Second, since you do it yourself, no one will judge you for taking one hundred and ten selfies at the same time in a bid to get the perfect one. Remember those days when the camera guy would only take one picture of you and regardless of whether you had your teeth sticking out like a warthog, or whether your eyes were in parallax, that one pic was it? With the selfie, you get to take as many as you want, and no one will look at you like you need therapy. Everyone is doing it.
Third, it gives you total control of your pictures, plus full editorial rights, which I think is the reason why celebrities love selfies. You decide what to crop, what filter to use, how to contrast…total control.
Enter the selfie stick. Like the name suggests, is a tool that is about 500cm long and has a clip at the end of it that holds your phone in position as you hold the stick at arm’s length and take your selfies.
The selfie stick is the latest craze, and I and other selfie stick lovers, are entirely grateful to its inventor. I cannot get enough of it. It gives you a better higher angle as you take selfies, and makes it easier to take pictures with a wider range. Now you do not have to decide who to crop out of your selfie. Imagine how many more people Ellen DeGeneres would have been able to capture in the famous Oscar selfie, if she had a selfie stick!
Using it is pretty addictive, once you raise your stick in the air for one selfie, you end up with about fifteen. Its popularity is on the rise so much so that in South Korea, selling an unregistered selfie stick, or having one that uses unauthorized radio frequencies can result into a fine of up to 17,000 Euros.
While I am not sure whether the Korean government will relax their laws, I am certain that the selfie and the stick are here to stay.
