Eight years, to be precise! On November 11th, 2006, I joined Michael‘s little daily photo project, which since then has flourished into a wonderful community. Some of my best friendships are a result of dailyfratze.de. Participating in this project has become an integral part of my life, one I can no longer imagine living without.

And last year, the English language has even gained a word for what I’ve been doing all these years: selfies. I first became aware of this word in Australia, where I thought not much about it, except, “cool, a word for what I’ve been doing all these years!”. Back in Germany, however, I noticed that this word often has a somewhat negative connotation, such as in “Look, those idiots over there taking selfies…” — how disappointing. It might just be a cultural thing; everything in Germany is negative, stressful and annoying. Skepticism is a German’s natural state (also: lethargy). In Australia, on the other hand, everything is positive, friendly and awesome! This is also how I perceived the usage of the word “selfie” around the world. But maybe that’s entirely subjective.

Now that everyone is taking selfies, I still have the ultimate bragging rights: I’m one of a handful of people who have been doing it continuously for (in my case) exactly eight years! I have never missed a single day. Though a vast majority of my selfies are somewhat unspectacular, I have a wonderful visual diary of my life. When I browse through my archives, I can literally see myself evolve from an introverted hermit into whatever it is that I am now (slightly less introverted?). I have experienced so much in these eight years. I have traveled to so many places. I have found great new friends. I saw old friendships die. I also see things that didn’t happen: I still live in the same old city. Maybe it’s time to change that sooner or later…

Naturally, I will remain loyal to dailyfratze and myself in the future. This project is such a unique personal success. Even if I don’t always look good in my selfies (in fact, most of the time I look terrible), there’s still the success of having taken a self-portrait every single day for eight years. To celebrate, here’s a silly picture of me composed entirely of pictures of me!

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