📸 THE STORY OF SELFIES 📸
FROM THE FIRST SELF-PORTRAITS TO THE SMARTPHONE ERA
📷 THE SELFIE THAT STARTED IT ALL
In 1839, Philadelphia photography pioneer Robert Cornelius created one of the earliest known photographic self-portraits. He reportedly removed the camera’s lens cap, hurried into position, and remained still for the lengthy exposure before returning to cover the lens.
👑 A TEENAGE PRINCESS AND HER MIRROR
In 1914, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia photographed herself in a mirror using a Kodak Brownie camera. The thirteen-year-old princess captured an early example of the mirror selfie, nearly a century before smartphones made the practice commonplace.
🇦🇺 THE WORD THAT CAME FROM AUSTRALIA
One of the earliest documented uses of the word “selfie” appeared on an Australian internet forum in 2002, describing a self-taken photograph. The playful ending fits an Australian habit of shortening words and adding an “ie” sound, as in “barbie” for barbecue.
📖 WHEN SELFIE BECAME WORD OF THE YEAR
In 2013, Oxford Dictionaries selected “selfie” as its Word of the Year after the term experienced an extraordinary surge in popularity. What began as casual internet slang had become a recognizable part of everyday language around the world.
🌟 THE OSCARS SELFIE SEEN AROUND THE WORLD
During the 2014 Academy Awards, host Ellen DeGeneres gathered a crowd of Hollywood stars for a spontaneous group selfie taken by Bradley Cooper. The photograph quickly became a social media sensation, demonstrating how a single playful picture could capture worldwide attention.
🤳 THE SELFIE STICK BEFORE SMARTPHONES
Long before smartphones, Japanese inventor Hiroshi Ueda developed an extendable camera support in the 1980s that allowed photographers to include themselves in pictures. Although the original invention never became a major commercial success, its basic idea anticipated the selfie sticks that became popular decades later.
📚 SOURCES
