National Selfie day: Why it is celebrated and everything you need to know

New Delhi, Jun 21: Every time someone logs onto their social media account, encountering at least one selfie is something they cannot escape from. How can we not celebrate a day just for them when selfies are such a trend?

June 21, along with being the International Day of Yoga, is celebrated as National Selfie day. It is indeed a special day for all the selfie-groovers.

History

Self-portraits have always been a form of art. From Vincent Van Gogh painting himself to Kim Kardashian's selfie book Selfish, there is an astonishing difference in how self-portraiture has evolved over the centuries. In fact, the father of photography, an American chemist named Robert Cornelius, sat still for 10-15 minutes for the first-ever international self-portrait in 1839. Today, just a single tap on a smartphone would give a clearer and better selfie than Cornelius'. So with the evolution of smartphones with specially designed front cameras to capture self-portraits, selfies have become more popular. They became so popular that the Oxford Dictionary's International Word of the Year for 2013 was "selfie," despite possibly being an Australian slang word.

With front cameras, selfie-taking became popular as ever, and social media influencers received thousands and millions of likes over their selfies. So this journey of capturing selfies is indeed worthy of being celebrated on this day. DJ Rick McNeely, from Texas, first pitched this celebration idea in the year 2014 when he was on Fishbowl Radio Network. Since then, it has been celebrated every year.

Most popular selfies

Nearly everybody who owns a smartphone would have captured a selfie on their front camera at least once. Selfies are so popular that they even have different kinds. Duck face selfies were the biggest trend during the early 2010s. After that came car selfies, bathroom selfies, pet selfies, travel selfies, gym selfies, celebrity selfies, baby selfies, voting selfies, etc. These different kinds of selfies, taken with good lighting and angles, account for a large part of popular culture today.

Celebrations

If looking for a way to honour this celebration of one of the most popular cultural pillars of today, one can take selfies with their friends or family. They can post the best selfies taken on their phones on their social media accounts along with the hashtag #nationalselfieday.