selfie

A photo that you take of yourself, usually for use in social media.

Selfie refers to a version of self-portraiture which predominantly takes the form of a photograph taken by oneself on a smartphone or webcam. The image is then often uploaded to a social media channel. Selfie culture is associated with social networking services such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Selfies tend to show the subject in a flattering light, with psychological studies of selfie-posting finding correlatives with narcissistic behaviour.

Time magazine named selfie as one of the top 10 buzzwords of 2012. The term was soon added to the dictionary, only to be eventually named as Word of the Year in 2013. The term is testament to the evolutionary power of language, demonstrated by its development from a niche term proliferating on social media to a mainstream term for a self-taken photograph which is ubiquitous across the globe. It has also been accepted for use in Scrabble.

A version of a selfie by pop artist Andy Warhol from 1963 is to be sold at auction later in June. The artist’s obsessive attendance to the concept of celebrity and image resulted in his exploration of his own image in a number of works. The piece will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s at the end of the month.

selfie

a photo that you take of yourself, usually for use in social media