If you’ve been anywhere with a decent WiFi connection of late, you’ll likely have heard of the term ‘meta selfie’. If you haven’t yet, you’re about to get an introduction to it, and the reason for its recent rise in popularity.
As our friends of Refinery29 have recently reported, Instagram is going through some *changes* right now. Users are no longer using the platform to share a grid of highly-edited perfect photos of themselves. Rather, there’s been a push for more ‘authentic’ content – real-life stuff that actually reflects your day-to-day.
With this drive for authenticity on Instagram, we’ve seen the birth – and take-off – of the ‘meta selfie’. Seemingly, this is acting as a way to lift the curtain on the selfie and share a behind the scenes look at the process. So let’s take a deeper look, shall we?
What is the Meta Selfie?
Again, looking to the solid write up R29 offered on the trend they’ve called the ‘meta selfie’, this style of snap is quite simply a photo of someone taking a selfie.
Okay, and how do I take one?
There are different ways of taking a meta selfie, but the most common example appears to feature folks using the back camera of their phone to take a photo of themselves, then, using the front camera of a second phone or camera, capturing that ‘selfie’ moment.
The result often looks like a selfie within a selfie (sometimes, within another selfie).
Maggie Zhou wrote:
“This trend says, we’re aware we’re being judged, but we don’t care. It says that we know we’re being watched and that our data is being mined, but we don’t care. It provokes viewers who eye-roll at the selfie generation, but is simultaneously poking fun at how vain it is perceived to be.”
Powerful, no?
Taking a page from the raw photo dump style of Instagram posts, the ‘meta selfie’ very clearly moves away from the manicured photos we’ve all grown so tired of seeing in our feeds. And I don’t know about you, but I for one think it’s about time we leant into genuine content on social media.
Prepare to see this trend popping up more often, very soon.
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