Hi, I’m Taryn Southern and I’m a self-professed internet addict.
No, I really am.
By the age of 10, I showed early signs and symptoms — waking up at 2 a.m. to sneak into AOL chatrooms (every parent’s nightmare), building fan pages dedicated to my Beanie Babies collection, learning HTML to create rotating sparkly GIFS for people on Geocities.
Fast forward to 2015. I’m now a full-time YouTuber (go figure!) and my iPhone might as well be attached to my left hand. The Internet is ubiquitous. And everything — from getting a job, to dating — just seems more...complicated. So, I started writing. "Self-Help for the Digital Soul,” as it’s aptly titled, is a tongue-in-cheek guide to navigating our complicated digital lives.
In the last two years since I started this series, so much has changed. Snapchat is all the rage, Tinder now has about 500 competitors, and we have way more filters for Instagram. In short, our lives online haven't gotten simpler. Perhaps our digital souls need help now more than ever.
WATCH: Selfie-help tips from YouTube star Taryn Southern
Though I originally made this video back in 2014 when posting selfies was somewhat novel, I think we could all still use some insight on what other people really think about those photos we post of ourselves. I hope these tips are humorously useful, and here are some of the latest apps I recommend for those of you who want to “up" your selfie game:
1. NoCrop: Don’t feel like cropping your photo to fit the instagram square? No problem. NoCrop will add white bars exactly to keep your photo looking exactly as you took it.
2. PhotoCandy: Make your photos look like professional poster designs or an advertisement for Burning Man.
3. VisageLab: Applies makeup, smoothes out undereye bags, skin tone, and more. Whitagram, Photolab, and Pizzapo also have similar tools.
4. GhostLab: Add your own ghost to your photos! (Because why not?) Not recommended for selfie beginners.
What are your selfie tips and tricks? Or do you just stay away from them all together? Let us know your thoughts here on TODAY.com or tweet us @tarynsouthern and @todayshow.
Taryn Southern is a YouTuber, writer, and comedian who’s most recent achievement includes winning a sexting competition judged by Mashable. Her videos have more than 500 million views across the Internet, and she’s been featured on shows like New Girl, The League, Rules of Engagement, American Dad, Last Man Standing, and Guys With Kids. She currently advises several media companies on digital media strategy and runs her YouTube channel full-time — YouTube.com/Taryn — and recently released a cover album of 80’s hits called Flashback Friday.