History of the Selfie

Where did this selfie phenomena come from? How did it get started? When did it get started? Curiosity struck, so I went to the best place I knew of to find out more, Wikipedia, did a little research and decided to blog about it.

Wikipedia defines a selfie as:

A selfie is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a digital camera or camera phone held in the hand or supported by a selfie stick.

Selfie stick… How does Wikipedia define that? I thought you’d never ask:

A monopod used to take selfie photographs by positioning a smartphone or camera beyond the normal range of the arm.

The first known “selfie” was taken way back in 1839 by an American pioneer in photography named Robert Cornelius but it was called a daguerreotype. There was a longer process back then to take a selfie so my guess is that’s why it was a longer name for it. In the 1900’s, more techniques came about with people taking “selfies” using a mirror. Wikipedia has Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna as the first teenager to take a selfie using the mirror method in 1914. She took it to send to a friend through the actual mail.

As far as who coined the word “selfie” it’s not completely clear but credit is being given to an Australian man named Karl Kruszelnicki. Uploading them to social media (from a disposable camera), credit also being given to Australia sometime in 2001.

Here’s something I didn’t expect to find when looking into the history of the selfie. Did you know that death by selfie is higher than people killed by shark attacks this year? Just for 2015, USA Today lists 12 incidents were people have died while attempting to take a selfie. That’s 4 deaths higher than the number of deaths from shark attacks this year. Who would have thought we would need steps on how to take a safe selfie. Check out the illustration below for safer selfie taking steps:

Selfie Safety brought to you by The Telegraph

When I started this blog, there was a video circulating on social media about a group of sorority girls at a baseball game, eating churros and taking selfie after selfie. The announcers for that game had a play by play on the shot that was pretty funny.  It looked over exaggerated at the time but it was said to not be and was real. What better way to start off a blog, with that video! Well… Now there’s an apology from the announcers because it was indeed not real. What a buzz kill. Everything on the internet is supposed to be true, right? Turns out the girls were actually doing some sort of a team promotion that would later be aired in the broadcast. According to Fox 4 News, the girls were all offered free tickets to an upcoming game. They accepted the tickets but with October being Domestic Violence Awareness Month they wanted the tickets to be donated to an organization called A NewLeaf who is a supporter of domestic violence awareness.  

Here's the video that was circulating, just in case you missed it:

Video brought to you by Foxsports.com