#SELFIE

If “self-photographic portrait” is an old-fashioned term, “selfie” has become the word of the moment and the selfie-mania is amazingly overflowing.

Young and old, Hollywood stars and mere mortals, everybody is tempted by selfies, sharing them with friends and relatives.

How can we forget about the selfie taken during the 86th edition of the Academy Awards by Ellen DeGeneres? It was a group selfie with the most famous Hollywood celebrities: Jared Leto, Jennifer Lawrence, Channing Tatum, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Lupita Nyong’o and Peter Nyong’o. Funny faces and smiles that were retwitted two million times in less than two hours: an authentic Selfie Awards!

Coming back in the world of normal people, the situation doesn’t even change: every day millions of selfies are posted, capturing several different poses with different backgrounds that give life to real subcategories.

This is the reason why the “Bathroom Selfie” and the “Bed Selfie”, not to mention the “Duckface Selfie” that seems to be the most famous one, are astonishingly popular.

Who was the first person to start this new trend taking the first selfie?

The first selfie of the history dates back to 1914, when the Russian grand duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna took a photo in front of a mirror. Then, she sent it to a friend of her along with a letter where the following words were written: “Taking this picture was so complicated, because my hands were trembling”. Not only was the first selfie to be taken, but also the first attempt of social sharing of what I like to call a “Vintage Selfie”.

Sara Dal Monte