The selfie, a self-portrait photograph taken with a smartphone and shared on social media, became a ubiquitous and pervasive cultural fad from the early 2010s onward. It is often criticized as a symbol of narcissism and superficiality, yet it has also become a central form of modern communication and self-expression. The sheer volume of selfies generated and shared has made it one of the most significant and debated cultural phenomena of the 21st century.

The selfie has been directly explored and satirized in contemporary poetry, which grapples with its implications for identity, vanity, and the nature of representation in the digital age. Poets use the selfie as a metaphor for the fragmented self, the performance of identity, and the quest for validation in a hyper-visible world. The fad has influenced a new poetics that is reflexive, performative, and intensely focused on the constructed self.