Do your hair. Check. Wear red lipstick. Check. Pout. Check. Turn on the phone’s camera, click and post picture to Facebook/Instagram/Twitter. Check. The selfie has had its fair share of glory and is now making way for its cousin, the shelfie. No, we’ve made no spelling error here.
A new rage involving taking a photograph of a shelf in one’s living space — be it a picture of your colour-coded personal library or a crockery cupboard, the shelfie is creating quite the stir on social media sites.
Brand strategist, Oindrilla Dasgupta, who started photographing her bookshelves well before the shelfie trend actually took off, says: “It gives immense satisfaction especially to book-lovers like my husband and me. We arrange/re-arrange our collection according to colours of the book covers, authors, topics, etc. It is something we love to do at least once a month.”
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For those of you who might not have an envious collection of novels, Ritvik Carvalho, an analyst at an investment management firm, says: “The shelfie trend really isn’t only pictures of shelves. It could be a picture of anything that’s been well-arranged.”
Those who are not voracious readers have taken the fad to other spots in their home, choosing to photograph tastefully arranged shelving units in the kitchen, bedroom, living roomand even the bathroom.
One of Ritvik’s shelfies features hand-picked scotch glasses against a backdrop of a panel of fridge magnets while Oindrilla’s latest features “our vase shelf with a white and gold colour theme. We got all the white vases together and put golden drum candles in the middle to create a peaceful picture.”
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Says Melita Anthony, a homemaker, “I love cooking and baking and I’m very proud of my collection of whisks, ladles and measuring jars that hang on my customised kitchen wall decal against which rests an old-world shelf with cookbooks handed down by my mother and my grandmother. I captured the perfect shot and no picture of mine on Instagram has garnered as much attention as this shelfie.”
Those who have had enough of the selfie craze are perhaps sceptical about the hype surrounding the shelfie. But Ritvik feels it’s a good trend because it means people are paying more attention to the photos they take, and are making sure even little corners of their house look good.”
According to blogger Amrutha Ratnam, “The shelfie craze has come as a boon to book lovers. Now I don’t look up the net for recommendations of what to read. I just refer to friends’ shelfies!”
But cynics think as with any trend this too will run its course till it’s replaced by something else.