Entertainment

Ansel Elgort’s New Photo Is Very Familiar

by Maggie Malach

It is quite possible that society has reached Peak Selfie. From Jimmy Fallon and Kate Winslet's charming photo game to the Chainsmokers' hit song "Selfie" to much of Kim Kardashian's Instagram feed, there's no doubt that we love taking — and sharing — photos of ourselves. This was elevated with Ellen DeGeneres' famous Oscars selfie, which went on to start a trend of star-studded celeb pics on social media. Ansel Elgort posted a photo of himself, Gigi Hadid and Joe Jonas, which leads me to wonder: Have we reached Peak Celeb Selfie?

To be clear, I love Elgort and find pretty much his entire social media presence to be charming. Unfortunately, this particular photo happened to surface at a point in time when celeb-filled selfies are kind of getting exhausted. It was hilarious when DeGeneres did it and interesting when other stars followed, but by the time Taylor Swift started sharing photos from her birthday and other celeb interactions on a daily basis, it just became too much. While there's still cool moments, like the internet's fascination with Amy Schumer and Jennifer Lawrence's friendship — something well-documented over social media — it's starting to feel like a competition for the biggest surprise compilation of celebrities.

Part of this frenzy comes from the new trend of having a "squad" and the subsequent "squad goals." Much has been made about Swift's "girl gang" to the point where she's getting a lot of backlash for her seemingly endless queue of famous friends. A lot of those relationships have ended up on Instagram in the form of selfies. Friendship is absolutely something that should be celebrated, but at what point is it just humblebragging?

My challenge is this: Instead of post nonchalant selfies downplaying amazing moments like your car full of supermodels and Grammy-nominated artists or your Vogue photoshoot, try to inject a little more creativity into your feed. You're more than just the people who surround you and it would be a refreshing change to the underlying #squadgoals competition.

Image: Ansel Elgort/ Instagram