Have you ever taken the ‘perfect’ selfie, only to post it on Insty and get a total of three likes? Well, finally science is being put to good use! A study has analysed millions of selfies from around the world and found a formula to maximise your selfie game.
Table of Contents
A Stanford University researcher plugged 2 million selfies into a machine that looks at every single pixel and categorised them into ‘good’ or ‘bad’ images dependent on the amount of likes they received. The top 100 pictures were broken down into size, colour, space and symmetry and this is what was found to make a selfie go viral.
1. Solo
Believe it or not, the best selfies were selfish selfies – images taken where the subject is front and centre and without any other people in the image.
2. Distance is Key
Move the camera a little further away so that your face isn’t the only thing in frame.
3. Light and Bright
Dark room selfies just don’t work. Make sure you’ve got bright light before snapping away. Extra points are given if you’re facing the light, as this gives your skin a glow and removes any shadows from the face (shadows make you look older and tired).
4. Whiten Up
White borders increase the number of likes. Go figure!
5. Don’t #NoFilter
When taking a selfie, filter until you can filter no more. Saturate the face and blur the background for maximum results or even consider going black and white.
6. The Rule of Thirds
Your face should take up 1/3 of the image. Tilt your chin slightly up and keep the head in the centre of the pic. Also, surprisingly, it doesn’t matter whether you cut your forehead off or not, so if you don’t like the top of the forehead, or you want a rounder face, crop it!
7. Rapunzel Rules
The longer the hair, the better. Loosen the pony-tail and have your hair hanging over your shoulders to get more engagement.
8. Girls Rule
Among the top 100 selfies that were analysed, there wasn’t a male in sight! Obvs just another thing that girls do better!
Selfie images from Andrej Karpathy.
