Selfie WRLD Boston draws customers in to take fun photos in front of unique, interactive backgrounds in Assembly Square, Somerville.

Customer Jasmine Smoot brought her daughter and three of her daughter’s friends to Selfie WRLD Boston for a fun afternoon.

“We love it, everybody’s having fun, it’s entertaining, it’s easy, it’s self sufficient and you kind of can go at your own pace. The colors are bright, you have options to be super creative if you really want to. The backdrops are great,” Smoot said.

Selfie WRLD Boston first opened in September 2021 and is open to the public six days a week. The Selfie WRLD franchise has 28 locations across the United States, with Selfie WRLD Boston being the first location in the Bay State. 

Selfie WRLD Boston has 26 different rooms and 30 photo opportunities total. The rooms are small cube-shaped setups with backgrounds, such as a retro cafe scene, a ball pit, a private jet scene, payphones and other colorful walls. Many of the small rooms feature neon lettering, a collage, or large props. New rooms are created for holidays and one room changes into a new design approximately monthly. 

With the rise of social media, selfie museums like Selfie WRLD are not new. Similar pop-up selfie museums have been in Boston before, including “Happy Place,” which was open from April to June in 2019 and “Go Pixel Yourself” in Cambridge, which opened in June 2021.

According to their website, Selfie WRLD Boston aims to help customers “immerse [themselves] into childhood nostalgia and fun,” but the draw for many customers is to get an Instagram-worthy photo. Between the ring lights provided for customers at the door and the orange and pink hues of the logo, Selfie WRLD Boston is aimed towards creating content for Instagram. 

For some parents who didn’t grow up with social media, accompanying their kids to Selfie WRLD is a different experience. Nicole Mok brought her 13-year-old daughter to Selfie WRLD Boston as a birthday experience. 

“[My daughter] just wanted to come and take pictures and have content,” Mok said “I am on social media making sure no creeps are stalking her, but that’s about it. It’s a very different experience for me, I don’t understand why she has followers she doesn’t know. It’s a little weird.”  

Instagram has a requirement that all users must be at least 13-years-old, and if not, it must be stated that a parent or manager runs the account on their account biography. Customer Michelle Teravainen brought her daughter and her daughter’s friends to Selfie WRLD and is somewhat adverse to the whole idea of social media.

“My daughter just got Instagram last week and TikTok last year. I hate it, I feel like I had to give into the peer pressure of her peers all having it,” Tervainen said.

Christine Spavento runs both of her daughters, Stella and Nicola’s, Instagram accounts, both having more than 8,000 followers. The girls are cheerleaders and models and get brand deals through Instagram. They visited Selfie WRLD Boston to create content. 

“My daughters loved how there was a combination of regular fun walls and also interactive spaces with props and furniture. Way more options than expected,” Spavento said. “I’m on Instagram a few hours per day. Interactions take the most time but are the most worthwhile to retain followers and get a lot of return engagement on my girls’ posts. We also shoot content almost every day to keep up regular posts and reels.”

Local model and influencer Nicole Spiller, known by her 90-thousand Instagram followers as @niicoleamber, was part of Selfie WRLD Boston’s grand opening and enjoyed the appeal of having so many different backgrounds to choose from.  

“I love the idea of renting a space like [Selfie WRLD Boston] where you have so many options because I think a lot of influencers run into this problem where you are working with this luxury brand and maybe your apartment or your house doesn’t have the same vibe that the brand is going for,” Spiller said. “You can take a photo for one brand on one side of the room and go to the next room and have a completely different vibe for another brand or content with different backgrounds. There’s a lot of different options that appeal to a lot of people.” 

A Medway native, Spiller divides her time between her sales job, being a content creator, working brand deals and modeling. Spiller tries to have two brand deals a month and posts regularly on her Instagram and her story. 

“It definitely is a lot of work, one thing that does come naturally to me is having communication on stories every single day, and engaging with the audience, that part of it doesn’t feel like work. Being creative at least once a day makes me feel fulfilled, so I like to create a reel, or post something on stories that can be helpful with my audience, or just have conversations at least once a day on social media to connect with them,” Spiller said.  

Selfie WRLD is located at 660 Assembly Row, Somerville and is open from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays through Saturdays and 12 p.m. to 7p.m. on Sundays.