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This article seeks to understand the mechanisms that led to the social acceptance of mobile images, and thus explore the processes of legitimation and cultural validation that mobile images underwent between 2005 and 2015. It is based on Gaby David’s doctoral thesis, “Process of legitimation: 10 years of mobile images.” The first, structural, section involves a dual study of the phenomenon through various cultural, artistic and media industries; an ethnographic analysis of the Pocket Films festival; and a historicization of the mobile images used in institutional circuits of information. The second section focuses on peer-validation and communities of practice, and highlights the user empowerment involved in the self-legitimation process. Finally, in an autoethnographic reflection, the author retrospectively studies her own practices, and reveals her selfies, as well as more connected, instantaneous and ephemeral visual exchanges.