Awww, Toddlers Are Obsessed With Taking Selfies, Too

I’ve always thought babies and toddlers were the neediest divas ever—feed me, change me, dress me, push me around in a ridiculously overpriced decorative cart. As it turns out, they’re also narcissistic camera hogs!

The Associated Press, possibly bored from looking at all those dull pictures of old politicians at actual news events, looked into the phenomenon and tracked down a bunch of parents who have all noticed their children are mini Norma Desmonds, always ready for their close-up.

We seasoned and rugged Internetters know this isn’t anything new. Babies have been stealing our cameras and lavishing photogenic worship upon themselves for ages. The Wire breaks down why it’s no surprise to see children so young jumping on the selfie bandwagon:

Children are actually very adept at using smart technology. According
to a recent study by Common Sense Media, 38 percent of children under two have used a mobile device, up 28 percent from 2011. Recently, parents won a class action lawsuit
against Apple because it was too easy for their kids to purchase game
add-ons while using their mobile phones. So it makes sense that
toddlers, already in the “mirror stage” of their development when
self-interest is at its highest, would be really, really into selfies.

Not only that, but parents are taking a shitload of pictures of their kids, too. Well isn’t that adorable! Except OH NO here come the fretful parents who are all BUT WHAT IF ALL THESE BAYBEH PICTURES WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING ABOUT HIS OR HER FUTURE:

While the barrage of images may keep distant grandparents happy, it’s
not yet clear how such a steady diet of self-affirming navel-gazing
will affect members of the first truly “smartphone generation.”
Tot-centric snapshots can help build a healthy self-image and boost
childhood memories when handled correctly, but shooting too many photos
or videos and playing them back instantly for a demanding toddler could
backfire, said Deborah Best, a professor of cognitive developmental
psychology at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.

The instant gratification that smartphones provide today’s toddlers
is “going to be hard to overcome,” she said. “They like things
immediately, and they like it short and quick. It’s going to have an
impact on kids’ ability to wait for gratification. I can’t see that it
won’t.”

Because, as they say, that’s when shit gets real. Behold this example of a child gone totally out of control with their addiction to self photography.

Julie Young, a Boston-based behavioral analyst, has seen that
firsthand. She was recently helping her 3-year-old son record a short
birthday video for his cousin on her iPhone when he stopped
mid-sentence, lunged for her phone and shouted, “Mom, can I see it?”

“It’s caught on the end of the video. He couldn’t even wait to get
the last sentence out,” said Young, who has two sons. “The second the
phone comes out, they stop, they look and they attack.”

Like a teenager hooked on the latest drug craze the media totally made up for ratings. Dear God. Have mercy on us all.

Much like an aging pop star who has had too much plastic surgery, it’s quite natural for babies and toddlers to be obsessed with their own image. And why shouldn’t they be? They’re beautiful and lets face it, it’s only downhill from there. Pretty soon you’re hitting your pre-K years and let’s just say mom and dad aren’t as quick with the “doesn’t Jacobi look adorable today!” comments. You start to notice Grandma and Grandpa don’t bring you as many pieces of inedible candy as they used to. Father Time is a rat bastard sonofabitch, man.

Even with all the effortlessness with which our young infant descendents take to selfies, some parents still worry that their kids might be missing something:

Jason Michael, a 32-year-old father of two in Denver, has
taken so many photos of his 11-month-old son and 4-year-old stepdaughter
(about 4,000) that his iPhone’s memory has filled up three times. His
stepdaughter takes plenty of selfies and loves to film herself singing
favorite songs, then watches the videos again and again. Michael worries that all that visual noise may keep them from
treasuring that one special image that can evoke memories decades later.
For him, it’s a photo of himself as an 8-month-old baby lying on a pink
blanket decorated with a rabbit eating a carrot. He remembers the photo
so vividly that he asked his mother for the blanket when his son was
born.

“I know everything about that photo. But there are 20,000 photos of
my kids, so will it have that same emotional impact for them?” Michael told the AP.

Then all the parents interviewed for the article went back to canning their own organic homemade baby food and blogging about how anyone who doesn’t do this for their child should die in a fire. Because those people are just the worst.