FARGO — Pull out your phone, flip on the front-facing camera, find the perfect background and flash those pearly whites. Bam. You're a selfie machine.
From ongoing Snapchat conversations to the casual "felt cute, might delete later" Insta-story, one thing is for certain: selfies are everywhere. And why shouldn't they be? There's nothing wrong with a little self-confidence and wanting to share it with the world.
Even in writing this story late last week, I have sent no less than 15 selfies in various Snapchat conversations. With the rise of selfie-culture, it's no wonder the word was added to the Oxford Online Dictionary alongside other millennial and Generation Z-inspired words like "twerk" and "emoji."
ADVERTISEMENT
With so many gorgeous faces flying around the almighty cloud, an interesting question comes up — where do the most selfies come from?
Fortunately, the folks at All Home Connections, an AT&T retailer, had the same question. They used data from Twitter to track more than 11,000 geocoded tweets containing "#selfie" between November 2018 and March 2019 to predict the approximate number of #selfie-Tweets posted annually in each state.
#SelfiestStates
Taking into account the population of each state, researchers concluded the Top 5 states with the most selfies predicted in a year as Nevada, Washington, D.C., Hawaii, New York and California.
All of these make sense when you take into account the touristy areas that draw millions of people there each year, including Las Vegas, our nation's capital, New York City and beautiful beaches. But where do North Dakota and Minnesota come into play?
Well, it appears that us Midwesterners need to step up our game.
Minnesota runs low in the middle of the pack and was ranked 39th out of 51, with an estimated 31,000 selfies being predicted to be shot and shared each year.
ADVERTISEMENT
North Dakota, however, comes in even lower on the selfie-frequency scale. At 49th overall, the effort put into snapping that cute shot really is quite abysmal. Researchers found just six geocoded tweets from the state throughout their six-month search, and predicted slightly more than 2,000 selfie-tweets will be shared this year.
Folks, we can do better! With everything the beautiful state of North Dakota has to offer — from the gorgeous hills in Theodore Roosevelt National Park to wacky street art in Fargo — there are endless opportunities to flash those pearly whites and show off that beautiful face. It's not vanity, it's self-confidence.
Looking to step up your selfie game? It's easy. Post on Sundays.
The same report found the beginning of the week to be the most popular day to show some #selfie love. Close behind is Saturday and coming in third is Tuesdays. A little midweek confidence boost never hurt anyone, eh?
