No, this generation is not the vainest of all time ...

Grateful to Amelia Tait at the New Statesman for reminding us of some of the people in history even more narcissistic than the present "selfie" generation:

  • Ramses II, who built more statues of himself than any other pharaoh and then inscribed his name on other people’s statues just to rub it in
  • The 40,000 Victorian women who died because they carried on wearing hoop skirts even though they knew they were extremely flammable
  • Emperor Nero, who had himself declared the winner of AD 67 Olympic 10-horse chariot race after he fell off his horse and refused to finish the race
  • Ancient Roman women, who knew that lead was poisonous but carried on using it to whiten their faces anyway
  • And then used crocodile dung as make-up on top
  • Rembrandt, who created over 100 self-portraits and then made his students copy them out in order to learn about art
  • And then also painted himself into his artwork of the crucifixion
  • Henry Cyril Paget, the fifth Marquis of Anglesey who purchased a theatre and multiple acting troupes so that he could always play the lead role
  • And also modified his car so the exhaust sprayed perfume
  • The First Earl of Leicester Robert Dudley, who commissioned 20 portraits of himself and the hung them next to pictures of Queen Elizabeth I
  • Louis XIII, who passed multiple laws prohibiting anyone but himself and other nobility from wearing gold embroidery
  • Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar, who ordered that a road be built as she walked so that her journey was smoother
  • Oh, and 10,000 people died building it
  • The Roman Emperor Caligula, who declared himself a god and killed anyone that mentioned goats in his presence
  • Josef Stalin, who shot his own parrot for mimicking him
  • And also killed a lot of other people too

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