“Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer (sic) and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps. I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie.”
The term became popular throughout the English-speaking world during 2013. The use of the word “selfie” increased 17,000%. A search on photo sharing app Instagram retrieves over 23 million photos uploaded with the hashtag #selfie, and a whopping 51 million with the hashtag #me.
The Oxford dictionary defines “selfie” as: "photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website."
There are several kinds of selfies: Helfie (a picture of one’s hair), Belfie (a picture of one’s posterior), Welfie (a workout selfie), and Drelfie (a drunken selfie)
According to publisher Katherine Martin, the term “selfie” is a typical Australian word pun similar to “barbie” for barbecue, “firie” for firefighter and “tinnie” for a tin of beer.
Other words that made the shortlist:
- Twerk – a raunchy dance move to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance
- Showrooming – to check out merchandise in shops and then order online for a lower price
- Binge-watching – watching a marathon of episodes of a TV
- Schmeat - a form of meat synthetically produced from biological tissue
- Bitcoin – a digital currency in which transactions can be performed without the need for a central bank.
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