A LONG TIME ago in a galaxy not so far away, taking photographs of yourself to stick up on MySpace and Bebo wasn’t that big a deal. Then the selfie arrived and everything changed.
2013 was the year of the phenomenon, with everyone from your mammy to Barack Obama getting in on the action.
However, as the term entered the vernacular – and the dictionary – the lines became rather blurred and now there seem to be quite a few people who don’t know what a selfie is.
Selfie – or alternatively ‘selfy’ – is officially defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as follows:
A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website
That’s something that seems to have been forgotten amid the rush to get things ‘trending’ worldwide though, resulting in a series of selfie offences ranging from minor to rather grave.
Museum Selfie Day threw up one of the most common misdemeanours yesterday.
Strictly Come Dancing’s Brendan Cole decided to get in on the action, tweeting this #MuseumSelfie of himself with his tour guides.
Except it’s not a selfie at all. It’s just a group photo.
Brendan’s mild confusion paled in comparison to this little #MuseumSelfie snap from an art lover in the USA though.
Unless that paper has magical hands, this is most definitely NOT a selfie. Not even a little. Not even at all.
To make things even more frustrating/amusing, PR agencies and companies are jumping on the failed selfie bandwagon in the hopes of drumming up some positive publicity.
Kieran and Natasha Morris contacted Domino’s Pizza to request these special pizza ‘selfies’ for their wedding. However, while crafted from a snap of the pair, the pizzas aren’t technically ‘selfies’.
And as if that wasn’t enough, even Jay Z doesn’t seem to know what a selfie is either.
With the internet police out in force you wouldn’t want to go getting it wrong now, would you?
