Selfie

Cameras are now incorporated into mobile phones, ipads, and webcams. Being light and easy to use, taking pictures have become relatively simple, more so self-snapped pictures of yourself. Self-taken pictures used to be done using conventional cameras with built in self-timers. These are usually for group pictures with the photographer included.

A word very much heard nowadays is “selfie”.  Everybody is talking about selfie.  A selfie is a picture that you take of yourself with a camera.  The word was first used as far back as 2002, September 13 to be exact, in an Australian Internet forum, ABC Online (Wikipedia).  A self-portrait taken with a camera was first recorded in 1839 when Robert Cornelius took a photograph of himself.  The word “selfie” was not in use yet.  It was only added to the Oxford Dictionaries online in 2013, and is still under consideration for its inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary.

As with most new words, there are bound to be misuse and confusion with some people.  I came across the word being used for pictures taken by a celebrity of her baby.  (This was in a well known newspaper, and prompted me to update this blog). A picture that you took of anyone or anything besides yourself is NOT a selfie. Most definitely, not baby’s selfie. Just baby's photographs. Also a selfie is NOT a photograph of yourself taken by someone else. Quite often, selfie has been used in place of photograph. This is probably because self-portraits or selfies are used widely in the social media on-line. To the uninitiated, selfies are any pictures in the social media. Having said that, a photograph of a plate of noodles that you took and posted is therefore not a selfie, even though it belongs to you and you are going to consume it.