You can't stop the selfie

You can't escape the selfie. No one can. Celebrities do it; politicians do it; and it's likely you or someone you know has done it. Selfies have become so ubiquitous that it was dubbed Word of the Year in 2013, and it's even entered the Oxford Dictionary, where it's defined as "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website." The latter part of that description is why the selfie is more than just a simple self-portrait -- it's meant to be shared.

One could argue -- and James Franco certainly has -- that the selfie is a window into one's personality. It's a quick way to show the world who you are on the internet -- like an online avatar if you will. I'll admit I've taken a few selfies myself, but always with a twinge of guilt that I was being shallow or vain. That guilt, however, is apparently not a concern for the majority of us. Selfies have well and truly permeated popular culture to, as you'll see in the gallery here, ridiculous levels.

[Image credit: Shutterstock]

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Bieber and the celebrity selfie

No celebrity has done for the selfie what Justin Bieber has done for the selfie. Okay, we have no evidence to back that claim, but we do know that Bieber was one of the reasons Instagram had a massive influx of users back in 2011, when the pop star first joined the photo service. Bieber is so synonymous with the celebrity selfie that he even backed a selfie-sharing app called Shots Of Me, where he sometimes posts pictures of himself in various states of undress. Of course, other celebrities have taken the opportunity to post choreographed self-portraits as well, like the not-at-all attention-seeking Kim Kardashian.