In defence of the selfie AKA why it's okay to be a digital narcissist

I've started taking a lot of selfies. If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably noticed this.

A friend told me that I should slow down on the selfies because I risk coming across as being too 'into myself'.

Uh oh, I thought, am I into myself? And for a split second I declared a moratorium on all future selfies.

Then I promptly took another one.

Selfies get a lot of flak as belonging solely to the masses of duck-facing tweens wearing I ♥ Justin Bieber t-shirts. People see it as a tool for narcissists. But I don't agree - I was an insecure little shit when I was sixteen, so you'd better believe my pimply face would have been plastered all over Instagram if we had it back then.

Think about it like this, people (girls in particular) are taught to be humble. When we get compliments on our appearance, we often minimise them, saying, 'oh it's just this lighting', or, 'don't be silly!' I only recently started simply saying 'thank you'. Getting compliments in real life is awkward. But damn, do they make you feel grand. Instagram, is a non-invasive, non-awkward way of getting compliments via the heart button. And who doesn't like a non-committal compliment?

So I'm not going to lie here, I am into myself. I like to adhere to the saying, 'no-one's going to love you if you don't love yourself'. So here I am, loving myself. Via a selfie. I don't feel the need to get validation on Instagram, but when I do, I don't think I should be humble about it. Stuff it - there is nothing humble about a selfie and I don't have plans on trying to make it so.

We spend too much of our time being apologetic for our existence. We say 'sorry' when we disagree with someone to soften our own arguments, we try to diet ourselves down to a size zero - literally taking up no space, we don't speak up for ourselves when we should. So I think taking selfies is a good thing. In a single moment, we're putting our faces into the digital space and announcing that we exist and that we look good. That must do wonders for self esteem.

And that's not a bad thing at all.

(PS: To that person who told me I was taking too many selfies, don't worry, I'm not going to bombard my Instagram account with an endless stream of my face. But when I snap one, and it looks bangin', you'd better be prepared to see it come up in your feed. I hope to see more of yours too.)