As I comb through my various social media profiles, I begin to notice some patterns. From misattributed Marilyn Monroe quotes to silly BuzzFeed lists, my Facebook newsfeed is a constant cycle of “same content, different day.” Of course, the photos of ourselves that we post online are no different! It doesn’t matter how varied your interests are or how much you scoff at society’s need for retweets and likes – if you are between the ages of 16 and 30, you probably have the same basic profile picture as everybody else.
Ladies, we all know we’re guilty of choosing at least some (if not all) of these as our default photos. Let’s take a look back at some of the pictures we have all inevitably posted at some point in our lives! (Tweet this!)
The Weekend Five: Profile Pictures That Every Girl Has Posted
1. The Selfie.
Yes, my friends, we are living in The Age of the Selfie, a time when it is (sort of) socially acceptable to take pictures of yourself sitting at your desk, with friends at a social outing or – more likely than not – in your car (the ever-popular Car Selfie). The word “selfie” has even made its way into the Oxford Dictionary online, which pains the aspiring social critics in us all, and yet we can’t help but snap pictures of ourselves doing the most mundane tasks. This probably says a lot about the self-centered millennial generation and our culture of entitlement (or something meaningful like that), but I’m not here to insult selfies. In hundreds of years, historians will look probably back at our selfies as a form of artistic expression. So rock those selfies, tinker with the filters and use as many hashtags as you want, because it’s 2013 and #YOLO.
2. The Significant Other.
We love to take pictures with our significant others and blast them all over Facebook! Maybe it’s because we want to capture the memories, maybe it’s because we want the world to know that somebody has found us attractive at least temporarily, but most girls have posted a cutesy picture with their boyfriends and made it the default photo at least once. If you go back far enough in a girl’s profile picture history, you may even find photos of exes buried between a prom pic and that one time she decided to have side-bangs. For some girls, the significant other pictures are few and far between, but for others, they make up the majority of photos posted since the relationship began.
3. Group Photo With The Friends Cropped Out.
Guys are notoriously guilty of not cropping their friends out of their default photos, but girls are usually much more meticulous about it. Sure, we might post a few pictures with our friends, but most of the time, we cut our friends out so that viewers of our social media profiles will know exactly which person in the photo we are. While appropriate for online dating profiles, the cropped friend shots are a little silly on other sites where the bulk of our friend list includes people we know in real life. However, if you’re ever with friends and the camera comes out, you can put your hand on your hip, turn to the side and take comfort in the fact that after cropping, you will have your latest profile picture.
4. Artsy Photo Taken Outside.
I’m not sure where we find all of these grassy knolls for our photoshoots, but we always do. It never fails to amaze me how every girl seems to have a friend with a fancy camera or the desire to take pictures of her! Whether we are outdoorsy girls at heart or in love with being inside, we all have a photo of us that was taken in a meadow, on a mountain or – at the very least – surrounded by flowers. Bonus points go out to those who then posted those pictures on Instagram with beautiful but completely unnatural filters. If your picture doesn’t make people ask themselves, “How could the sky have possibly been that blue?” or “Where is the lighting this perfect and slightly sepia-toned?” then you’re obviously doing it wrong.
5. The Throwback.
We save most of our throwbacks for Throwback Thursday (#tbt), but occasionally a few oldies but goodies make their way into our profile pictures. From ridiculous high school photos to baby pictures we clearly asked our moms to scan and email to us, throwback photos appeal to our sense of nostalgia, which seems to be stronger than ever at this point in our lives. It’s never too early to relive the glory days!
Sound off in the comments below! Are you guilty of any of these? What photos would you add to the list?
