So apparently, the famous (or infamous) selfie just got an upgrade: the ‘sponsored selfie.’ The word is that American socialite and reality TV star Kim Kardashian herself does a lot of this. It would be interesting to see how local influencer campaigns integrate this into their social media strategies.

by Patrick Coffee of PR Newser via http://www.adweek.com/prnewser/sponsored-selfies-are-here/114133

Today in things that we TOTALLY saw coming, people have finally commoditized the technique Kim Kardashian uses to make money on social media.

In case you want to lose a little bit of whatever faith you have left in humanity, influencer marketplace Tomoson has launched a feature by which brands “can invite influencers to post selfies to Instagram” and make the process easier by basically automating it for them.

Here’s the dashboard:

…and here’s the end result via makeup influencer Maria Isabel-Gridley:

On the one hand, this sort of thing was inevitable. It formalizes a practice that already happens all over social media while potentially eliminating the sort of ethical quandary that comes from brands and/or influencers not revealing the nature of their (paid) relationships.

On the other hand, the commercialization of something so supposedly intimate is a little…disconcerting. Everyone’s a spokesperson now, and there’s not a damn thing “organic” about it.

And yet. In a post on The Guardian last week, brand marketing expert Paul Armstrong of the excellent @themediaisdying feed writes that brands often shy away from using selfies in campaigns because “many dismiss them as simple narcissism” and, in doing so, display a sort of contempt for their own customers.

Here’s another pitch we got this week:

They almost look like…nope, we won’t go there.

Maybe we all need to stop behaving like the carmudgeons we are and just accept the new reality. As Armstrong puts it:

“Brands have to stop thinking selfies are for young people who have identity issues or a way of simply adding volume to campaigns, and start looking for the next generation of brand storytellers. There is a world of creativity out there if you stop to look for it.”

He’s right, we guess. Carly Simon even wrote a song about it.