Why Take a Selfie in 2025?

The selfie has become an ubiquitous part of our digital landscape. From its rise to fame in the 2010s to its current normalization, it's time to revisit what makes a selfie significant and why we take them.

My book, The Selfie Generation (2017), chronicled the form's rise into the mainstream, from becoming Oxford Dictionaries' "Word of the Year" in 2013 to transforming TV shows, pop psychology, marketing, and visibility for marginalized people. Today, I'm still wondering why people take selfies and what they signify.

One day, my partner and I were riding a roller coaster at Chicago's Six Flags Great America amusement park when my phone flew out of her pocket during the ride. We found it in a log-dismounting area and asked around to locate its owner. A guy wearing a soaking-wet blue shirt hopped out clutching my partner's iPhone, and later, a selfie of him popped up on her camera roll.

Was this some sort of elaborate phone hack? Had her phone started picking up someone else’s iCloud stream? Could it be that this wasn’t even her phone? After much contemplation, I concluded that he likely took the selfie because he thought it would be funny. A selfie gains meaning based on its context, which is determined by where it's posted and who sees it.

In my book, The Selfie Column (2013-2014), most people don't wonder why someone took a selfie and posted it — instead, they assume they know that person’s intentions, turning the selfie into a projection of their own ideas. As Agatha Christie wrote in her 1930 novel The Mysterious Mr. Quin, “Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.”

There is more to the selfie than meets the eye. In the decade or so since its rise in popularity, the essential purpose and meaning of a selfie largely remain the same. Most of the selfies that make headlines are still accidental, or at least coincidental; a search for “selfie” brings up daredevil selfies, death by selfie, self-promotion, loneliness.

One of the first selfies was an 1839 daguerreotype self-portrait by photographer Robert Cornelius. However, it wasn't until 1963 that artist Andy Warhol began taking selfies in photo booths as part of his creative practice. He was obsessed with documenting his existence. “A picture means I know where I was every minute,” he once said. “That’s why I take pictures. It’s a visual diary.”

Today, growing concerns around selfies and self-imagery are mostly directed toward Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who are absolutely growing up online. Earlier this year, parents of four British teenagers who died after taking part in the viral “blackout challenge” sued TikTok. In 2020, the TikTok "skull-breaker" viral challenge came under fire for the similar dangers it posed to kids.

The forthcoming iPhone 17 might get a major selfie camera update, doubling the front camera to 24 megapixels; Androids like the Xiaomi 15 Ultra already have 32-megapixel cameras. Image quality will improve, offering sharper, brighter selfies.

So long as we have smartphones in our pockets, the selfie will continue to circulate, mutate, and connect us with others in unexpected ways. Though it may not always feel like it, the choice to post is ours.

The Selfie Generation (Skyhorse Publishing) by Alicia Eler

Though it may not always seem that way, the selfie has become a significant aspect of our lives. From its rise in popularity to concerns around self-imagery and the growing digital landscape, we need to consider what makes a selfie meaningful.

Alicia Eler is a cultural critic and arts reporter. She is the author of the book The Selfie Generation (Skyhorse Publishing), which has been reviewed in the New York Times, WIRED Magazine, and the Chicago Reader.