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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfie

 

Feifer, Jason.  “Is This a Selfie?” The New York Times.  The New York Times, 21 July 2015. Web. 22 July 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/opinion/is-this-a-selfie.html?ref=opinion

 

“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