ViralWorld

Selfie

You might remember it as selfie word of the year

This is something people said. There is no recording of it to show.

2013·The social era

A photograph somebody takes of themselves, usually with a phone.

At a glanceThe facts

Remembered as
selfie word of the year
Spread in
2013
Format
Phrase
Era
The social era
Made by
First recorded in a post by Nathan Hope, who later said it was just common slang at the time
Where it started
An Australian online forum
Origin
No single original
Available
Not held by ViralWorld

What this wasThe story

The first recorded use is a post to an ABC Science forum on 13 September 2002 by a man explaining a split lip: sorry about the focus, it was a selfie. The word sat unremarked for a decade while the front-facing camera arrived, then Oxford Dictionaries made it word of the year in November 2013.

Why it matteredWhat changed

The first recorded use of the word is in a 2002 post on an Australian science forum. Eleven years later it was Oxford’s word of the year.

TimelineIn order

  1. Made

    Robert Cornelius takes a photograph of himself, and writes on the back that it is the first light picture ever taken.1

  2. Made

    The word appears in a forum post.1

  3. Picked up

    The iPhone 4 is released with a camera on the front.1

  4. Later

    The hashtag is used on Instagram for the first time.1

  5. Mainstream

    Oxford Dictionaries names it word of the year.1

What people misrememberSet straight

Commonly remembered asThe man who first wrote it invented it.

ActuallyHe said he had not: it was already slang where he lived.1

Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · copied, redrawn and reused until the original stopped mattering · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later

Where it came fromWhat we know

This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. No copy is held here — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is what this page can tell you.

Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

More from the social eraMore of the archive

ConnectedFollow it further

SourcesWhat was read

  1. Wikipedia — Selfie

Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things

Keep browsingElsewhere on ViralWorld