This hardback book, ‘Selfish’, by Kim Kardashian, was published by Rizzoli in 2015. It contains around 300 selfies taken by Kardashian between 1984 - 2014.

Kim Kardashian is an American media personality who stars in the US reality TV show ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’. Kardashian, described by the New York Times in 2016 as “queen of selfies”, has referred to the book as an autobiography.

The term ‘selfie’ came into popular use to describe digital photos taken of oneself and is associated with social media. ‘Selfie’ was picked as word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries in 2013, after research that found its use had increased 17,000% in the preceding twelve months, spurred-on in part by its use on social media. The photograph-based social media platform Instagram is a popular forum for posting selfies. In 2012, when Kardashian joined Instagram she had two million followers within three months. ‘Selfish’ loosely follows the format of Instagram, with large images and short, informal captions.

Selfies can be an opportunity for self-expression, communication, and making art, but they have also faced criticism. Kardashian has frequently been accused of narcissism by the press because of the images she takes of herself, which the title ‘Selfish’ may reference, along with a word-play on ‘Selfie’. There is public concern that social media may have a negative impact on the mental health of its users, especially if they are children or teenagers when they start using the platform. Selfies also have the potential to be used to infringe on privacy, security, or as a tool to surveil. Kardashian herself has faced issues with privacy, and some of the images published in the book are once-private nudes which were leaked to the internet in 2014 from iCloud without her consent.