Life without a camera is a scary thought now! We thrive on this ‘capture in reel’ moment. Everyone has this uncontrollable desire to show off every part of their lives, how sorted maintained their life is. And that’s how people recharge their self-esteem. It’s become a mere pure business.
Narendra Modi, Ellen DeGeneres, Jennifer Aniston, Joe Biden, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Selena Gomez have all made selfies one of the most powerful representations of the social media age.
1. The Politically Right Selfie
The modern-day “bromance” of Obama and Biden has been immortalized in many photographs over the years.
In one of the first photos posted by former US former Vice President now Elect President Joe Biden in April 2014, when he joined Instagram with his official handle @vp now renamed as @vp44, this selfie was liked over 75,000 times, with around 8,000 comments.
Obama himself also laughed when he said: “This also gives the Internet one more opportunity to chat about our bromance.”
The duo’s picture bagged the prize for the ‘Most Powerful Presidential Selfie’ — with literally the seal of the President of the United States visible on the car seat between them. Who knew in the hindsight, Mr. Biden too would be elected as President.
To celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, an event was held and attended by Bollywood actors like Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhat, Shah Rukh Khan, Kangana Ranaut, Ekta Kapoor, and others. During the meet, PM Modi interacted with these actors, and the selfie of the same was also shared by Karan Johar on Instagram where he emphasized the importance of such meet can bring about progressive change towards ideal nation-building as Indians are influenced much by Bollywood.
2. The Oscar well-planned selfie
Host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres posted the most-shared selfie in Twitter’s history on March 2014’s Oscar ceremony, with over 3.4 million retweets and 2.4 million likes. Until recently, this selfie was also the platform’s most retweeted article.
The celebrity-filled photo included (from the left): Jared Leto, Jennifer Lawrence, Channing Tatum, Meryl Streep, Ellen DeGeneres, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Bradley Cooper (who’s handling the Samsung series phone), Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, among others.
The ‘celebrity-saturated’ selfie make it to the list of the 100 most influential photographs ever taken.
But Oh! Not many know that iPhone lover cum user Ellen was serenaded with a considerable chunk of donation by Samsung to her charities to make it happen. Samsung had paid a lot of money that year to be a sponsor of the Oscars… Highlight- a LOT of money. Also, they played their cards right by investing in the right partnership and being thoroughly professional.
The rest of this is history… History of social media!
3. The “I think I broke it”- Selfie
When Jennifer Aniston joined Instagram in the year 2017, the platform was not quite ready to welcome her. The users of the IG swarmed to get a glimpse of the post, a selfie featuring Friends’ main cast. Posing alongside her former co-stars, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer, she captioned her first post as: “And now we’re Instagram FRIENDS too. HI INSTAGRAM.”
She broke a Guinness World Record, becoming the fastest user to reach one million followers on the app, hitting the mark in a mere five hours and 16 minutes.
- After her first tweet, fans were momentarily unable to follow the star triggering an explosion of followers, likes, and comments.
- A representative from the photo-sharing app confirmed to CNET that there had been some technical problems, which they quickly resolved.
- Aniston has seven million followers less than 24 hours after her first post was posted, which in turn has been liked almost nine million times.
4. The Instagram egg selfie
The @world record egg account was generated on 4 January 2019 with a debut post of a bird egg pic. Yes. An egg selfie with the caption, “Let’s set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram by beating Kylie Jenner’s existing world record of 18 million”
In just under 10 days, the post quickly reached 18.4 million views, becoming the most-liked Instagram post of all time. In the next 48 hours, it then started to climb above 45 million views, surpassing the music video “Despacito” and taking the world record for the most liked online post (on any media platform) in history.
The cheeky egg also received a video reaction from Kylie herself.
There was a lot of talk about who was behind the egg, and the egg started cracking as time went on. Like literally, it posted pictures of itself cracking. It was during Super Bowl game, the great discovery revealed that Hulu- OTT platform had collaborated with the egg to raise awareness of mental health.
5. The First outer space selfie
Gemini 12 astronaut Buzz Aldrin takes a selfie during a spacewalk in Nov. 1966.Source: NASA
Astronauts are frequently described as great scientists and heroes, but as some of the most important photographers of all time, they are seldom lauded. They shot, with the ability and daring, images that instantly embraced the iconography of the sublime, inspiring awe and wonder from the thin defenses of their space capsules and EMUs (Extravehicular Mobility Units).
Even before selfies became ‘A Thing’ the First Space Selfie was shot by astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second human to walk on the Moon. This picture was taken during the Gemini 12 mission in 1966, three years before he landed on the Moon when Aldrin was conducting an Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA).
Missions from Project Gemini were human spaceflight missions that helped develop, understand, and test the technologies needed to land on the Moon for humans.
So……what are your favorite selfies of all time?
By Divya Thakur, Mumbai
