Selfie

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about self-photographs. For other uses, see Selfie (disambiguation).

teenagers taking selfie at rashtrapati bhawan , india

This article may contain inappropriate or misinterpreted citations that do not verify the
text. Please help improve this article by checking for citation inaccuracies. (June 2016) (Learn how
and when to remove this template message)

A typical selfie, shot from ahigh angle, exaggerating the size of the eyes and giving the impression of a slender
pointed chin

A selfie (/selfi/)[1] is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a digital camera or camera phone
held in the hand or supported by aselfie stick. Selfies are often shared on social networking
services such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. They are usually flattering and made to appear
casual. Most selfies are taken with a camera held at arm's length or pointed at a mirror, rather than
by using a self-timer. A selfie stick can be used to position the camera farther away from the subject,
allowing the camera to see more around them.
Contents
[hide]

1History

2Popularity

3Sociology

3.1Gender roles, sexuality, and privacy

3.2Celebrity selfies

3.3Politician selfies

3.4Group selfies

4Psychology and neuroscience

5In popular culture

6Injuries while taking photos

7See also

8References

9External links

History
Self-portraits before digital photography

Photographic self-portrait by Robert Cornelius, 1839

Unidentified woman taking her picture in a mirror, c1900

Robert Cornelius, an American pioneer in photography, produced a daguerreotype of himself in 1839

which is also one of the first photographs of a person. Because the process was slow he was able to
uncover the lens, run into the shot for a minute or more, and then replace the lens cap. [2] He
recorded on the back "The first light Picture ever taken. 1839." [2][3]
The debut of the portable Kodak Brownie box camera in 1900 led to photographic selfportraiture becoming a more widespread technique. The method was usually by mirror and
stabilizing the camera either on a nearby object or on a tripod while framing via a viewfinder at the
top of the box.[4] Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, at the age of 13, was one of the
first teenagers to take her own picture using a mirror to send to a friend in 1914. In the letter that
accompanied the photograph, she wrote, "I took this picture of myself looking at the mirror. It was
very hard as my hands were trembling."[5]
Photographic self-portraiture flourished in the 1970s when affordable instant cameras birthed a new
medium of self-expression, capturing uncharacteristically personal insight into otherwise
conservative individuals[6] and allowing amateurs to learn photography with immediate results.[7] This

practice transitioned naturally across to digital cameras as they supplanted film cameras around the
turn of the millennium.
The first use of the word selfie in any paper or electronic medium appeared in an Australian internet
forum on 13 September 2002. InKarl Kruszelnicki's 'Dr Karl Self-Serve Science Forum', a post by
Nathan Hope stated:[8][9]
Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer (sic) and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very
close second) on a set of steps. I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry
about the focus, it was a selfie.
The concept of uploading group self-taken photographs to the internet, although with a disposable
camera and not a smartphone, dates to a webpage created by Australians in September 2001,
including photos taken in the late 1990s (captured by the Internet Archive in April 2004). [10][11][12]
As early as 2003, Italian media artist Alberto Frigo started photographing every object his right hand
uses. The life long project resulted in the first categorized collection of selfies showing the artist
every time he brushed his teeth, every time he put on deodorant etc.[13][14][15]
The Sony Ericsson Z1010 mobile phone, released in late 2003, introduced the concept of a frontfacing camera. The Z1010's front-facing camera had a sensor for selfies andvideo calls.[16]

Popularity
The term "selfie" was discussed by photographer Jim Krause in 2005,[17] although photos in the selfie
genre predate the widespread use of the term. In the early 2000s, before Facebook became the
dominant online social network, self-taken photographs were particularly common on MySpace.
However, writer Kate Losse recounts that between 2006 and 2009 (when Facebook became more
popular than MySpace), the "MySpace pic" (typically "an amateurish, flash-blinded self-portrait, often
taken in front of a bathroom mirror") became an indication of bad taste for users of the newer
Facebook social network. Early Facebook portraits, in contrast, were usually well-focused and more
formal, taken by others from distance. In 2009 in the image hosting and video hosting website Flickr,
Flickr users used 'selfies' to describe seemingly endless self-portraits posted by teenage girls.
[18]
According to Losse, improvements in designespecially the front-facing camera of the iPhone
4 (2010), mobile photo apps such as Instagram and Snapchat led to the resurgence of selfies in the
early 2010s.[19]

Buzz Aldrin took the first EVA selfiein 1966.

Initially popular with young people, selfies gained wider popularity over time. [20][21] By the end of
2012, Time magazine considered selfie one of the "top 10 buzzwords" of that year; although selfies
had existed long before, it was in 2012 that the term "really hit the big time". [22]According to a 2013
survey, two-thirds of Australian women age 1835 take selfiesthe most common purpose for which

is posting on Facebook.[21] A poll commissioned by smartphone and camera maker Samsung found
that selfies make up 30% of the photos taken by people aged 1824. [23] By 2013, the word "selfie"
had become commonplace enough to be monitored for inclusion in the online version of the Oxford
English Dictionary.[24] In November 2013, the word "selfie" was announced as being the "word of the
year" by the Oxford English Dictionary, which gave the word itself an Australian origin. [25]
Selfies have also been taken beyond Earth. Selfies taken in space include those by astronauts,[26] an
image by NASA's Curiosity rover of itself on Mars,[27] and images created by an indirect method,
where a self-portrait photograph taken on Earth is displayed on a screen on a satellite, and captured
by a camera.[28]
In 2011, a crested black macaque pressed a trigger on a wildlife photographer's camera, set up in
an Indonesian jungle for that specific purpose; when the camera was later recovered it was found to
contain hundreds of selfies, including one of a grinning female macaque. This incident set off an
unusual debate about copyright.[29] In 2016, a federal judge ruled that the monkey cannot own the
copyright to the images.[30]
In October 2013, Imagist Labs released an iOS app called Selfie, which allows users to upload
photos only from their among teenagers.
In describing the popularity of the "foot selfie", a photograph taken of one's feet while sunbathing at