I was about to post this question on here: “Why do selfies always appear backwards on smartphones?” This issue drives me nuts, especially when there’s text in the photo anywhere–like Wayne’s selfie of his colorful “Admit One” mask printed in the Kenosha News (and republished here, but with the photo corrected, because like I said, it drives me nuts). But then, as pretty much always, these days, I realized I can ask Google and get my question answered within 0.76 seconds and in 2,240,000 different ways.

Google says (via Michael Airhart from Quora):

“The front-facing selfie camera on many phones does in fact create reversed images: It is not an illusion. This horizontal flipping is evident in the backward lettering on shirts and signs in images that are uploaded from a front-facing camera to social media. Why does the camera initially flip the image? People are accustomed to seeing themselves backward when they look in a mirror. If they see themselves unmirrored while looking at a camera, they become distracted and disoriented, especially if they move the camera, since what they see on the phone is the opposite of what they would see in a mirror. So selfie cameras flip what they see, horizontally, in order to create a reassuring mirror effect. What happens when the picture is taken? When the picture is taken, some camera apps unflip the photo by default, and some don’t. If your chosen camera app does not automatically unmirror the image, then you may be able to change the app’s default settings for saved images, or you may need to use a third-party image app to horizontally unflip the image.”

So there you have it. I find it amusing that one gets easily distracted and disoriented by looking at their reflection the right way instead of mirrored. I gotta try that to myself sometime just to see how it affects me. Maybe just before I upgrade to my new phone… I don’t want to blow chunks on my active phone…

UPDATE: I already tried it. I played with “Webcam Toy” in Google Chrome on my PC and there are plenty of variations on mirroring your live image there. The mirroring that made words look right wasn’t disorienting. It was a little confusing, especially if you’re moving in one direction and your image “seems” to be moving in the opposite direction, but this makes sense to me. It would make it difficult to do anything practical, probably, but I think that’s just because we’re not used to seeing it that way–we’ve always seen our reflection a certain way, so that’s what our brain expects.

Webcam Toy does have some really neat effects though, if you haven’t tried it out before. I particularly like the live split-screen effects. I can move to certain spots to turn myself into an alien, a pinhead, etc., and just crack myself up. Of course TikTok now offers hundreds more live effects than Webcam Toy will even be able to, so I’m probably still way out of touch by today’s tech, but I’m aware, and always trying to catch up to the kids.