Selfies, the derided yet immensely popular modern portraiture, draw ire because of narcissism and exhibitionism, of course, but also because anyone can take them and do so ad nauseum. It’s too easy and available, with no expertise or gatekeeper necessary. The act is magalomania, sure, but it’s also democracy, that scary, wonderful rabble. From, ultimately, a defense of the self-directed shot by Douglas Coupland in the Financial Times:

“Selfies are the second cousin of the air guitar.

Selfies are the proud parents of the dick pic.

Selfies are, in some complex way, responsible for the word ‘frenemy.’

I sometimes wonder what selfies would look like in North Korea.

Selfies are theoretically about control – or, if you’re theoretically minded, they’re about the illusion of self-control. With a selfie some people believe you’re buying into a collective unspoken notion that everybody needs to look fresh and flirty and young for ever. You’re turning yourself into a product. You’re abdicating power of your sexuality. Or maybe you’re overthinking it – maybe you’re just in love with yourself.

I believe that it’s the unanticipated side effects of technology that directly or indirectly define the textures and flavours of our eras. Look at what Google has already done to the 21st century. So when smartphones entered the world in 2002, I think that if you gathered a group of smart media-savvy people in a room with coffee and good sandwiches, before the end of the day, the selfie could easily have been forecast as an inevitable smartphone side effect. There’s actually nothing about selfies that feels like a surprise in any way. The only thing that is surprising is the number of years it took us to isolate and name the phenomenon. I do note, however, that once the selfie phenomenon was named and shamed, selfies exploded even further, possibly occupying all of those optical-fibre lanes of the internet that were once occupied by Nigerian princes and ads for penis enlargement procedures.”