The social media timelines of your contacts may be flooded with oddly-angled photos alongside the words “#NationalSelfieDay” today. The selfie, or self-portrait, has become something that it appears that everyone is doing. Maybe not everyone. Just 95% of all Millennials.
In 2013, the Oxford Dictionaries added the term “selfie” with the definition being: “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.”
Although the term “selfie” is quite new, the portrait of one’s self or group of friends was something pretty common to the popular 110 and 35mm camera models of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. It wasn’t until the film was developed, though, that the user would often realize that a friend’s head or their own arm was cut out of the picture. In today’s digital age, a selfie can be perfected with no paper or film waste.
The first selfie to have ever been taken was not something anyone currently living on this planet would have been around for. Taking a look into the Library of Congress, it appears that the first self-portrait ever snapped was by and of a man named Robert Cornelius.
Robert Cornelius, the world’s first “selfie,” from the Library of Congress
In the book “Photographic Material,” by Carol Johnson, it is explained that:
Daguerre announced his invention of a photographic method to the French Academy of Sciences in August 1839. That October, a young Philadelphian, Robert Cornelius, working out of doors to take advantage of the light, made this head-and-shoulders self-portrait using a box fitted with a lens from an opera glass. In the portrait, Cornelius stands slightly off-center with hair askew, in the yard behind his family’s lamp and chandelier store, peering uncertainly into the camera. Early daguerreotypy required a long exposure time, ranging from three to fifteen minutes, making the process nearly impractical for portraiture.
Even the Stever takes selfies! – Facebook.com/stevedahlshow
More than 50% of young adults, or Millennials, have claimed to post a selfie to a social media website, compared to 24 percent of Generation X-ers and 9 percent of Baby Boomers, as noted in a Pew Research poll in 2015.
So grab a digital camera today, snap a selfie, and post it on social media with the hashtag #NationalSelfieDay. What’s the worst that could happen? Actually, at least 12 people in 2016 alone have died from taking selfies. It’s probably a good idea when taking one to step away from a mountain cliff, or put the gun and rattlesnake down to instead pose with a stuffed animal.
Big John Howell taking a selfie
One of the 25,000+ selfies that Millennial, Jen DeSalvo, is predicted to take throughout her lifetime.
