Alright, selfie-haters. We know. It’s fun to make fun of the person you catch taking a selfie because it looks ridiculous from the 3rd person point of view. It looks vain, fake, self-obsessed (all the things that old people complain about our generation wrapped up in one little action). 

This being said, there’s no way you’re going to convince me that taking a selfie isn’t preferable to the old-fashioned way of having someone take the picture for you. In fact, I’m about to go on a mini-rant about why this is the case. It’s about to get real. 

Reason #1: You can take a picture whenever you want. 

When you get a picture taken the “old-fashioned” way, you have to have someone around to take the picture for you. Unless you conveniently have a stalker that never leaves your side, you’re going to have a moment in time when you just look too darn good not to have a picture taken, and there will be no one around to take it. Ugh! I can’t even imagine a world where you would just have to let a good hair day go uncaptured. 

Reason #2: It can be you, yourself, and...you. 

Okay, I know this sounds vain. But think about this for a second. You know how annoying it is when Jennifer, Jackie, and Julia want to be in a picture with you and now the picture has to cater to all their different best angles, best sides, and best poses? Someone will want to do a funny face picture and there’s always that one terrible person that doesn’t do it, so now the photo is messed up. Sure, you can have someone take a picture of just you...by yourself...alone. The only time those pictures don't look awkward is if you have the Eiffel Tower in the background.

Reason #3: You don’t even have to ask someone. 

Let’s face it. There’s no un-awkward way to ask someone to take a picture for you. They’re either a complete stranger or someone you don’t like enough to be in the picture with you. You know they don’t want to do it but they’ll do it to be nice, and they know they’ll look like the pricks of society if they decline. And then the awkwardness ensues when you check the picture and they’ve taken a gawd-awful one so you politely ask, “Can you please take another?” and they begrudgingly say, “Sure.” If you’ve been unlucky enough to grab the worst amateur photographer in the world, you have only two times to ask, “Can you take another one?” before it’s just rude. 

Reason #4: You can take as many as you want. 

Unlike the situation with the amateur photographer in statement #3, you can take as many pictures as you want with a selfie. Take one, take one hundred. It doesn’t matter. In one photo session you can have pictures of yourself in wonderful bathroom lighting, brilliant car lighting, or no lighting at all if you’re in a dark mood. Smiling, unsmiling, duckface. #NoShame when you’re all alone with your camera. 

Reason #5: No one can take a picture of you better than yourself. 

Photographer, shmotographer. Have you not seen America’s Top Model? Professional photographers have to take a million pictures of you from a million different angles because they’re trying to figure out how to get your best shot. Meanwhile, thanks to all the pictures you’ve taken of yourself, you’re much more practiced.

Reason #6: You’re making good use of a phone feature.

Waste not, want not. The front-facing camera on your phone is there for a reason. The geniuses behind the smart phones understood the revolutionary importance of the selfie. We’re not self-involved human beings. We’re just technology appreciators.

Reason #7: It’s free.

I don’t know about you, but I (and my parents) have paid for numerous traditional pose-and-pay photographs, and I’ve hated nearly every single one. Yearbook photos, driver license pictures, passports, composites: if I’ve paid for it, I’ve probably hated it. Not because of the money exactly but because once again I had to pose in awkward positions and have my picture taken by a stranger like it was 1912. They come out terrible and you have to pay for it anyway. Ugh, can’t I just take my selfie?

Reason #8: This is a thing. 

Look! Look how much fun they’re having. When me and my friends attempt to take group selfies, hilarity like this often happens. We’re not taking ourselves seriously, we’re fully aware that this is a one- or two-time deal and we’ll probably look hideous anyway, and we can laugh at the ridiculousness of it all afterwards. While an old-fashioned group picture is usually annoying, group selfies are often fun as we yell to the poor sucker taking the picture to stretch their arm out farther.

Reason #9: You like it and that’s really all that matters.

They can gripe all they want about your selfie, but if they're seeing it up on your social media profile it means that 1) you felt beautiful today, 2) you felt great satisfaction when you took a good picture, and 3) you felt you were pretty enough to share your face with the world. 

Sure, people can argue that it’s an insecure cry for attention, but if selfie-lovers were that insecure they wouldn’t put their face up for judgement in the first place. Selfies are a way to say "I’m here, I think I’m pretty," and that’s really all that matters.