Self Pop Tart

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About

Self Pop Tart is a single topic blog that curates user-submitted self-portraits in which the cameras have been replaced with cutout images of pop tart pastries for comedic effect. While the "Self Pop Tart" photographs serve as a parody of "mirror shots" commonly found on social networking profiles, it is likely the inclusion of pop tart pastries is a reference to the well-known internet meme Nyan Cat.

Origin

The single topic blog "Self Pop Tart" was launched by Kevin Patrick Hanley on November 22nd, 2011. Upon debuting on Tumblr, the blog received much attention after Pete Wentz, the bassist for the band Fall Out Boy, shared the link with his 2.8 million followers on Twitter.^[3] Some of the most notable submissions on the official blog carry over 8,000 shares.

Spread

On November 23rd, the day after the blog's creation, The Daily What^[4] posted a link to the Tumblr.
Throughout December 2011, the blog was written about by a number of notable internet culture blogs including BuzzFeed^[5] and Laughing Squid^[6], as well as winning the title of "Best New Single Topic Blog of the Year" on the Huffington Post.^[7] The link to the blog was also featured on the frontpage of Reddit.^[8] More examples of the photo fad can be found on Tumblr^[9] under the hashtag #Self Pop Tart.

In an interview with American Photography Magazine^[10] the same month, the founder Hanely explained that he has received a mixed batch of both photoshopped portraits and actual images of people holding the pastry candies.

The vast majority of submissions have been non-'shopped, which has led to me doing most of it. I didn't have any preconceived notion of whether pictures would come in 'shopped or not, and again, I assumed most would be coming from a small group of my friends and not an international cadre of lunatics and score-settlers.