A Hilarious Study of Selfie Photos in 5 Cities Around the World

Each city, Selfiecity posits, has its own selfie style. The faces in Moscow seem to trend older than those in Bangkok (relatively speaking – we're still just talking about 20-year-olds here). Sao Paolo seems to produce the cheekiest grins (and why wouldn't it? These people are in Sao Paolo!) The ladies of New York, meanwhile, appear to prefer the subtle head turn (just a hint of profile) over the dramatic ear-to-shoulder head tilt.

This synopsis comes from a delightful analysis of thousands of actual selfie photos from Berlin, Bangkok, Sao Paolo, New York and Moscow (where, yes, there is notably more selfie brooding). The project was created by Lev Manovich at the Graduate Center at CUNY – he also brought us an earlier playful study of Big Data in Instagram from various cities – alongside half a dozen other data scientists, curators and researchers.