Selfies. What are is a selfie? Does it really matter in the long run? It is truly amazing how much selfies matter
to people. I found multiple articles on
selfies and the true definition of them.
The author of “Is This a Selfie?” was concerned by the general lack of
knowledge of the definition of selfie.
He was annoyed by an article in the New York Times about a picture of
Pluto taken by New Horizon’s flyby of Pluto.
The author called the picture an “extraordinary time for a cosmic selfie…” While it is a historic picture, I would have
to agree that the Photo is not a selfie by the definitions I have found.
The
first documented selfie according to the BBC appeared back in 2002 when a drunk
man posted pictures he had taken of his injuries to his face that he had sustained
from falling down (while drunk). But the
real rise in selfies didn’t happen until 2013.
Perhaps the most famous selfie that has been retweeted and shared
millions of time happened during the Oscars in 2014. Ellen DeGeneres used her phone to take a
group photo when many famous actors. But
Ellen didn’t actually take the picture… It was her phone, but her arms were not
long enough, and so Bradley Cooper used her phone to take the picture.
Not
every picture taken is a selfie. .“ALL selfies are photos. Not all photos are selfies. This
distinction is lost on many — including brands on Twitter, television news
anchors, your parents, and let’s be real, newspapers — which have used the word
“selfie” to describe group photos, buildings, scenery and more. It’s time to
clear up what exactly a selfie is.” (Jason Feifer, the New York Times). People
take picture all the time. People take
pictures of themselves to share with others (my kids steal the camera ALL the
time and fill it up with pictures), but should all pictures be called selfies?
“Selfies are here to stay. The act of
taking a photo of yourself was added to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary in 2014. Scrabble also added it to its dictionary last year. A selfie, as
defined by Merriam-Webster, is "an image of oneself taken by oneself using
a digital camera especially for posting on social networks."Charles
Poladian, IBT Pulse)
Whether
one uses their hand or a selfie stick to take a picture, the consensus is that
the person taking the picture took a selfie. So I guess Bradley Cooper took the selfie not
Ellen.
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 22 July 2015
Feifer, Jason. “Is This a Selfie?” The New York Times. The New York Times, 21 July 2015. Web. 22
July 2015
“Pulse| International Business Times.”
Pulse/International Business Times. Web. 22 July 2015
http://www.ibtimes.com/pulse/what-selfie-everything-you-ever-wanted-know-about-taking-photo-according-new-york-2019933
"Stop Abusing the Word ‘selfie,’
Please." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 18 June 2014. Web.
22 July 2015.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/06/18/stop-abusing-the-word-selfie-please
