Instagram model gets paid to bare all...

How many selfies do you think are taken around the world on any given day? A million, 20 million or more? I'm not sure of the number, I mean how could it possibly be tracked, but I know it's a lot. I did some googling and apparently several years ago it was estimated by Google statistics that some 93 million selfies were taken each day; Figures that only included Android devices. So, I think it's fair to say that over 100 million selfies are taken a day. Probably much more that that. Divided by 24 hours that's 4,166,666 selfies per hour or almost 70 thousand per second. Yeah, that's a lot of duckface's and trout pouts!

I've been known to take a selfie or two here and there, mainly if I'm trying to get a post together for Steemit. I'm not on Facebook and the other social-media's and am not in the habit of sending selfies to anyone so the odd selfie of me out shooting or whatever is about it. I'm sure you've seen a few on my blog. I'm certainly not addicted to it and considering I'm not the greatest fan of how I look I try not to take them very much. That's one of the reason's I've almost always got my sun glasses on in photos; Hides more of my face. So yeah, I've taken a selfie or two I suppose. My wife on the other hand...Well, she's the most anti-selfie person I think I've met.

My wife is not on social media. I mean, at all. Seriously. She hates it and has zero interest. She also doesn't really like having her photo taken and on those occasions when I want to take one she grumbles or pulls a face. I've threatened to upload one of those odd faces she makes but haven't had the courage yet as I think she would probably kill me. So, the image above is one of those occasions when she decided to give me a smile when I took the photo. This was taken in Salzburg, Austria. No, Austria is not Australia...It looks a little like it, but there's less letters, and Australian's, in Austria than there is in Australia.

People's infatuation with their own image is curious I think. I mean sure, feel confident and happy with how you look but the amount of selfies people take...It's a little excessive I think. Back in the day one had to turn a camera around and try to aim it at oneself, snap the shutter then take the 35mm film cartridge to the photo shop (not the software program, a shop where they developed film) and have it developed and printed on photographic paper. It could take anywhere from 1 hour to 3 days depending on how busy they were. That sort of takes away from the spontaneity of the moment right? And how could they possibly get that piece of photo paper into their phone and on Facebook?

These days that all happens on a person's smart phone, all except the printing part. Printing photos is so last century! What's more one can take nude photos and upload them on the interwebs for all to see...An indelible record of your tits or ass...Or Dick pics! Awesome right? Wrong.

I'm not sure when all of this became a thing although it is definitely a thing. It's a plague and it seems week to week another story breaks about the exploitation of the image of a minor, the theft of digital images or some sort of inappropriate use of a selfie. I have heard stories of it and it ruins lives. [Think a nude photo sent to a boyfriend and inappropriately used after the break up.] That shit will linger with you for a long time. It happens to adults too. There was this one incident I know of when a nude image was disseminated around the office a mate worked in (he was a cop) and it didn't end well for the young lady concerned. The image went far and wide in mere seconds. Yes, the past comes back to haunt on occasions.

We live in a world in which a person's identity is public knowledge, and many people play their lives out to a global audience willingly and indeed with relish. I can kind of understand an Instagram model or celebrity doing it as they get paid to do so, significant money too, if their popularity is large enough...But the average person on the street? Hmm, I don't know...Maybe the voyeurs of the world are interested and I'm sure the person themselves gets some sort of emotional value...Or not.

Don't get me wrong, I think this sort of thing, selfies, has a place in this social-media-infatuated-world we live in but I also think there's a line many cross that is better left uncrossed. I don't just mean nudity either, make no mistake, nudity is legit, just...Well, the oversharing I guess, and the fact that the camera always seems to be turned inwards rather than outwards...

...But then I guess that's how people's mindset is too. Inwardly-focused and self-satisfyingly narcissistic.