Gone are the giant photo albums with pictures of your childhood.  Gone are   the camera cases unless you are a real professional photographer.  Gone are the days of buying film for your camera and having to wait for days to see what photos you took.  It is certainly a new era and a new way of sharing your favorite photos with   just about anyone.  We have entered an   era of the selfie.  The Pope is doing it, Ellen did it at the academy awards and now we do it all the time.  Everyone seems to be holding up their phone camera an arm’s   length   away on taking some photo of a bunch of too close heads.  My problem is that all too often these kinds of photos seem to just take close ups   of the inside of my nostrils and that is not a pretty sight.  I like the convenience and all but something else needs to be done.

I need to change my entire selfie   image.  We all want to look slimmer, prettier or handsomer even younger at a click of a button.  I know no health spa can do all of that anytime soon.  90% of teens say they post selfies on line where perfection is just a filter a way.  People are going to real extremes to look air brushed in real life.  I remember my mom going to the beauty shop to get her hair done on days she thought   someone would take a picture of her.  Taking photographs used to be a main event that you would prepare for.  Not anymore.  We have to be ready for that selfie every day now that could be posted everywhere in the world before you even had a chance to see it.

There is a new solution out there for our problems.  Let’s say you   love the photo but you look pale in a picture. You can use an I Phone app that will adjust skin tone.  The perfect app lets you air brush your selfie with one tap of your finger.  The art of the selfie has created a whole industry of smart phone apps that will help you look your best.  If you think you look too fat, try Skinny Pix.  For dull skin or blemishes, facetune can fix that.  Lately your social media presence can be just as important as your real presence.  If you really are all that concerned, go to the plastic surgeon and get those fake implants if you really want better cheeks or chin.

Your plastic surgeon will tell you when you are camera ready.  At that point I would wonder where is the real me?  The guy I always used to be.  Facebook deserves a better   looking guy.  Lots of business meetings are now being conducted during Skype chats.  You want to look good.  Sometimes any pose can’t  change the appearance of a weak chin.  Then there is   your own psychosis that gets in the way.  You’ll notice that chin that you hate all the time whereas others have no idea what you’re talking about and what is bothering you.

Now we can be spending 15 or $20,000 on plastic surgery face work all because of the damn selfie.  Surgery is a huge commitment but it should be a last ditch effort and only if you look like the elephant man.  Lose the weight, have good discipline and exercise, even get a natural tan and if you still look like the elephant man, get that surgery.  At least in the old Polaroid   camera days we could always blame our imperfections on the cheap camera or bad   film.

It can take 2 hours of surgery to complete all the nips and tucks to one face to make it perfect for a short while.  Plastic surgery is addictive.  Nearly everyone who has   decided to go that way, willl find a reason to do more to have more done.  Until they have a  totally plastic face.  Within a week of plastic surgery, you will be bruised   but you also will be pleased.  I guess after all that surgery, the  goal is to never  have to use a face  enhancing app again.  The fact of the matter is that taking a good selfie picture has become a high stakes business that can turn just about anyone into looking like a celebrity.  Trying to move at the speed of the Internet is hard.  The picture you put out there of yourself is your fame and your head shot.  You can reinvent yourself every single day if you choose to put the effort into it with simply your I Phone.

There are  talent managers at places like  Ufluence Group that specialize in promoting Internet  stars and managing the careers of people like Nicole Guerrero who is an online makeup guru.  Their   social media presence and their use of selfies on line and on instagram is a huge marketing tool that they have at their fingertips.  There  are  companies devoted to finding the next big star online. and the advertising dollars that they can bring in. The  companies  are hoping that they can ring in the next jenselter who became famous for her provocative posterior selfies.  Yeah, she takes pictures of her ass.  So go ahead and take that picture perfect picture of your face or  anyplace else on your body you can feel good about.  I believe that selfie enhancing apps can actually make you feel more insecure about yourself.  Who is the real person under all these enhancements?  Do we really need to feel insecure about   what we really look like in real life?  Most of it is holding us to a higher  unrealistic standard.

Not everyone is born beautiful and there is nothing wrong with trying to look your best.  But I guess these times are  not about  just getting your hair done at the beauty shop like my mom used to do.  Nowadays you get a little help from an app or a nip tuck or a Instagram filter.