#Aftersex

About

#Aftersex is a hashtag used to highlight post-coital selfie taken and uploaded by couples on Instagram. Upon its breakout in March 2014, the hashtag has been largely criticized as an example of oversharing in the social media.

Origin

The earliest known selfie featuring the #aftersex hashtag was posted to Instagram^[1] by user arielchapaval on September 8th, 2013 (shown below).

Precursor

On October 1st, 2008, the indie culture magazine Vice^[12] published several interviews with couples who had just finished having sexual intercourse. On July 13th, 2012, Vice released the first in their "People Who Just Had Sex" video interview series (shown below).

Spread

On March 5th, 2014, Instagram^[2] user marcyuanaz23 posted a Snapchat photo of a man in bed with a woman who resembles pop singer Miley Cyrus with the hashtag “#aftersex” (shown below).

On March 26th, the pop culture blog Nerve^[3] published an article about the #aftersex hashtag, which criticized the practice as a form of "gloating." On March 27th, the tech news blog CNET^[4] highlighted several examples of #aftersex selfies. On March 31st, Twitter user Richie Goslin tweeted a photograph of his girlfriend holding a positive pregnancy test while he is shown sulking in the background using the hashtag #aftersex. In the following week, the hashtag was used more than 8,800 times on Instagram^[13] and well over 10,000 times on Twitter.^[14]

News Media Coverage

On March 26th, the pop culture blog Nerve^[3] published an article about the #aftersex hashtag, which criticized the practice as a form of “gloating.” On March 27th, the tech news blog CNET^[4] highlighted several examples of #aftersex selfies. In the coming days, several news sites published articles criticizing the Instagram selfie trend for being unnecessary, including The Daily Mail,^[5] Time.^[6] E! Online,^[7] The Huffington Post,^[8] Gothamist,^[9] The Guardian^[10] and Neatorama.^[11]

Search Interest

External References