We had photo booths back when I was a kid, 50 years ago. There's plenty of evidence in my mom's family photos that selfies/group selfies aren't new.
There's a photo booth as part of the plot in one of my favorite movies, Amélie.
We had photo booths back when I was a kid, 50 years ago. There's plenty of evidence in my mom's family photos that selfies/group selfies aren't new.
There's a photo booth as part of the plot in one of my favorite movies, Amélie.
Purikura is not just taking photos of yourself in a photo booth. There is a strong cultural aspect to it, especially for school-aged girls, and I’m honestly surprised hasn’t really made it over to the US in any big way because it’s pretty fun.
The booths are large and fit 4-5 people. Even back in the early 2000s, they had fancy ring lights, touch screens, keyed-in green screen backgrounds, and automatic face retouching. They all had different themes as well. Arcades had/have whole floors of them, and sometimes would have costumes you could put on. Booths would often change seasonally, putting out different themes or gimmicks so you could come back and see different ones.
Once you take your photos, you get to decorate them on screens on the outside of the booth. You add digital stickers, write/draw on them, tweak the editing, and choose the layout you want. Then you print! They have scissors to cut up the pictures and divvy them out. The printed photos also have sticker backing so you can stick them to your cell phone, your journal, whatever.
Lots of girls collect them, swap with friends, and/or take them to commemorate particular events in their lives. It’s also a popular date activity, much like photo booths outside of Japan. But it’s a pretty far cry from the photo booths you’re describing. Honestly it’s a lot more similar to Snapchat, but like 30 years ago.
And at that time people here were laughing at the Japanese that they had cameras on their phone and iMode
Song lyrics were about purikura
If they really wanted to, 4 to 5 people could fit themselves into a conventional photo-booth. Speaking of 80ies to 90ies Germany here. They were everywhere, stations, post-offices, larger supermarkets, early shoppingmallistan...
I know this, because I did it many times :)
Got some funny photos that way, trying to cram all the faces in the rather small FOV :)
When I came to Japan in 2015 and was dating here, I was taken to purikuras in multiple occasions and let me tell you it's totally different experience from the Western photo booths. Both the machines, abilities and creativity of pros managing them made me very surprised in many ways.
Purikura is older than Amelie.
Anyway, saying print clubs are the mother of selfies is of course hyperbole. But I think it makes sense if you think of "selfie culture", especially if you include insta/snap filters as part of selfie culture.
But yes, taking pictures of yourself or in a photo booth is older than print clubs. I would be quite surprised if print clubs didn't come about by someone saying, "photo booths are fun, how can we make them even more fun?"