Members of Gen Z take 0.5 selfies.
Courtesy of Duncan Grant, Rebecca Smith, Rachel Aquino, and Gabrielle Lesser.
When 16-year-old Riley Galfi met her favorite artist at a concert in May, she asked him to take a .5 selfie with her instead of taking a regular selfie with him.
In a flash, Galfi flipped her phone over, tilted it above her head, pressed the volume button, and snapped a fun wide-angle photo. Galfi was all smiles when she told CNBC about her experience.
“I got a 0.5 on Aidan Bissett,” she said. “Huh? That’s amazing.”
This wide-angle image is colloquially referred to as a .5 selfie, and Galfi and his colleagues refer to it as a “point 5.” A sassy photo trend is taking social media platforms by storm.
.5 selfies gained attention after Apple first introduced an ultra-wide-angle camera lens to its iPhone 11 product line. According to , this style is especially popular with Generation Z, or people born after 1997. Pew Research Center.
Gen Z has already witnessed the rise of smartphones, social media, and more recently artificial intelligence in their lifetimes, so these savvy users are used to keeping up with ever-changing technology trends .
On platforms like InstagramFor example, Gen Z users don’t like perfectly curated feeds full of posed, filtered photos. Instead, many are embracing the seemingly effortless, messy, and effortless aesthetic of this cool outfit that’s so hard to capture.
.5 Enter a selfie.
Rachel Aquino, 24, said in an interview with CNBC: “It’s not a normal selfie. It shouldn’t be a thoughtful photo.” “It’s something that I usually work on on a whim and capture in the moment in real time.”
Aquino has been taking 0.5 photos every day for the past year. She stated that she uses these as simple personal records to record her daily life, clothes, events, and moments with her family.
She likes to take selfies when she goes out with friends and joked that if she didn’t take one, someone else would. Aquino said it usually takes her two or three tries to nail her shot because she’s not aiming for perfection.
Rachel Aquino takes a .5 selfie.
Provided by Rachel Aquino
“Sometimes I don’t look at the camera, sometimes I’m walking down the street in New York literally staring at the back of my head, and sometimes I’m sitting at a table with friends,” she said. “Sometimes when you’re having a really good time and you don’t want to bother anyone, it’s like in the back of everyone’s mind.”
Aquino is known as the “.5 Queen” at work and often shares photos on her Instagram and TikTok accounts.
.5 Selfies are now a staple of Instagram Stories and a popular Gen Z Instagram trend called “photo dumps” where users share groups of up to 10 random, atemporal photos to their main feed. It becomes. Sandwiched between gorgeous landscapes and sumptuous meals, .5 selfies serve as a way for Gen Z to showcase their individuality on the platform.
Gabriel Lesser, a 21-year-old university student, said that many of his friends share 0.5 photos on Instagram, and that he is “always at the top” of photo dumps. I have one friend who lives by the slogan “Make Instagram Casual Again,” so he mostly posts .5 photos.
“I think it just reduces expectations for photography,” Lesser said in an interview with CNBC. “If you have cool angles and interesting and goofy proportions, you’ll think, ‘This is interesting.'”
Members of Gen Z take 0.5 selfies.
Courtesy of Emma Kelly, Rachel Aquino, Annika Kim Constantino
For many professional social media creators, a more casual online aesthetic has proven beneficial. Popular Gen Z creators like Alix Earle and Emma Chamberlain, who has more than 15.7 million followers on Instagram, have built their brands around empathy.
Chamberlain’s photography is edgy and fun, but not entirely sophisticated. In other words, theoretically anyone can reproduce it. Her more attainable vibe reflects her earlier career, which included signing a podcasting deal with Spotify, starting her own coffee company, and traveling the world with brands like Louis Vuitton. It helped me achieve milestones that were hard to reach.
Some creators got their start purely because of the .5 lens.
Internet users are obsessed with TikTok creator Sabrina Bassoon, affectionately known as “Tube Girl.” Bahsoon came under fire on the video-sharing platform earlier this year due to a half-dozen videos he filmed on public transport in London. Her videos ooze confidence and style, and she was able to appear in numerous designer fashion shows this fall.
“Just seeing someone so confident while recording and looking so good at the same time is crazy,” Aquino said. “I think that’s why Gen Z goes crazy about tube girls.”
.5 How to take a selfie
Gen Z members take .5 selfies.
Provided by Duncan Grant
.5 To take a selfie, first open the Camera app on your iPhone. Flip the camera so that you’re looking at the scene in front of you instead of looking at your face like in a traditional selfie. Tap the 0.5 button that appears above the word “Photos” to access the camera’s ultra-wide lens, then orient your phone so you can’t see the screen.
The next step is the angle. Straighten your arms, raise your phone above your head, and press the volume button to capture the shot. Be careful not to press the power button by mistake.
The camera has a very wide field of view, so you usually don’t have to worry about having multiple people in the frame. As a result, .5 selfies serve as a great way to capture large group settings and beautiful backdrops.
“Be careful not to wave your arms when taking the photo, or you’ll get a distorted photo,” Lesser added.
For some .5 photos, weird distortion is actually the goal. Gen Z quickly discovered that if you take a .5 photo close to your face, for example by holding your phone to your forehead, you can make your eyes bulge, your nose pop, or your legs disappear.
“If someone makes a funny face, the .5 makes it look even funnier,” Galfi says. “It’s like creating a caricature that highlights one characteristic. I think it’s a lot of fun.”
Capture both big and small moments
Gabriel Lesser takes a selfie with .5.
Courtesy of Gabriel Lesser
Lily McIntyre, 23, said she uses .5 selfies to capture both the exciting and mundane events in her life. She has 5 photos of her depicting scenes from her trip to Ireland, and others relaxing in her living room.
“Sure, I have all these photos that celebrate the mundane parts of my life,” she said in an interview with CNBC. I think the great thing about .5 is that it can be applied to anything.
Similarly, Lesser takes at least 0.5 photos a day to capture moments like a fun walk or breakfast with her grandparents. .5 images serve as an easy way to document something without worrying too much about what you look like, he said.
“People are tired of trying and performing all the right angles,” Lesser said. “I think the .5 is especially fun to take as a selfie because you can’t see yourself while you’re taking it, which means you don’t have to judge yourself or criticize yourself. ”
His grandparents are also excited about the photos, he added.
Ms McIntyre said her generation was often criticized for taking too many photos and spending too much time on their phones, but she was grateful to have “stupid pictures” to look back on.
“I think it’s a fun form of self-expression,” she said. “And it’s not limited to Gen Z. If you want to hop on the .5 selfie train and you’re a different generation, you can do it.”
