Welcome to the "Selfie Olympics," the first popular meme of 2014, which hit Twitter in a big way over the weekend.
Perhaps weary of watching people like Pope Francis, President Barack Obama and the Mars Rover hog all of the selfie glory, regular Twitter users raised the bar by issuing a simple challenge: "How strong is your selfie game?"
Well, how strong is it? If you're going to win, you're going to need some help. First, a primer on the "Selfie Olympics."
- What you will need: A room with a mirror (preferably the bathroom), a smartphone, some props and your imagination.
- What you will need to give up: Your dignity.
- The goal: Create the most outrageous, elaborate selfie mankind has ever known, giving future generations a glimpse of the apogee of human progress.
- The stakes: A chance at Internet fame. So none, basically.
Tag your photo #SelfieOlympics and you're ready to be judged by strangers on Twitter. The best are compiled by The Selfie Game — changed from "Selfie Olympics," we assume, for copyright reasons — and tweeted out to the account's more than 90,000 followers. (Note: Twitter feed includes plenty of NSFW entrants, because sometimes people on the Internet get naked).
Yes, you are going to have to put some effort into these.
If your bathroom is too small to fit all of your worldly possessions and/or your sad, strange friends, then you can go the Photoshop route.
Or you can be clever and make fun of an older, simpler time, when taking selfies required lighting the magnesium powder in your camera's flash.
Optical illusions are also popular, especially when paired with pop culture references. Selfieus tweetorum!
Last, but not least, you can go the inspirational route. #SelfieGame indeed.
So, how do you win the "Selfie Olympics?" That is a trick question. When you enter the "Selfie Olympics," we all win.
Keith Wagstaff writes about technology for NBC News. He previously covered the tech beat for TIME's Techland and wrote about politics as a staff writer at TheWeek.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @kwagstaff and reach him by email at: Keith.Wagstaff@nbcuni.com