Akhram Mohamed, Marketing Director, Huawei Consumer Business Group South Africa shares 5 things we didn’t know about the selfie.
The selfie. Love it or hate it, it is undeniable that it has become a central element of global culture, transcending boundaries of geography, religion, and status. Nothing embodies the influence of technology on our lives more than the phenomenon of the selfie. Here are five fascinating facts you probably didn’t know about this modern-day marvel.
- The birth of the selfie
Believe it or not, the very first selfie was taken way back in 1839 by an American photographer, Robert Cornelius. His purpose was not purely narcissistic, however, as he was taking the photo to try out a new lighting technique. Unlike the ‘quickie’ selfies of today, experts estimate that Cornelius would have had to stay in the same position for three to 15 minutes to get the shot. Some historians have also argued that self-portraits have been an important part of art for centuries, and well-known painters like Rembrandt and Van Gogh were big fans of this medium.
- What’s in a name?
In 2013, Oxford Dictionaries included the word ‘selfie’ in its online dictionary, and even went so far as to award this term the accolade of Word of the Year. In the previous year, Time Magazine had included the word ‘selfie’ in its list of ‘Top 10 buzzwords’, and in 2014 this term was officially accepted for use in the game Scrabble. The word ‘selfie’ was first used in Australia back in 2003 when a young guy took a picture of his face, showing how he had hurt his lip while drunk, and shared it. This social-media friendly term reflects the tendency in Australian English to add the ‘-ie’ ending to words to form new slang terms – ‘barbie’ for barbeque or braai is another example.