Selfie

About

Selfie, sometimes spelled Selfy, is an internet slang term for “self-portrait” that is used to describe self-taken digital photographs. The term is commonly used as a hashtag on photo-sharing communities to indicate that the subject in the photo is the uploader himself or herself.

Origin

While it is unclear where the term selfie began, selfy spelled with a y was used as early as 2004 on photo-sharing site Flickr^[23] to describe self-taken portraits. The term was also popular within the teenage population on the social networking site MySpace, as exhibited by the first definition for selfy, submitted to Urban Dictionary^[24] on April 22nd, 2005.

Guido Jesus

Guido Jesus is an advice animal image macro series that utilizes a self-taken photo of a tanned man with long, flowing black hair. The captions tend to make a biblical illusion followed by an irreverent statement that makes the character seem more like a Jersey Shore cast member than a holy entity. Since its first appearance in 2011, more than 1300 instances of Guido Jesus have been submitted to Quickmeme.^[46]

Ulzzang

Ulzzang is a South Korean internet slang term used to describe ordinary people who have become internet famous due to being deemed especially attractive. The term, which is a portmanteau of the Korean words for face (“Ul-gul”) and best (“Zzang”), was used as early as the 1990s, leading to the creation of a number of beauty ranking websites similar to Hot or Not throughout the 2000s.

Don’t Obsess Over Me

“Don’t Obsess Over Me, I Am Only a Legend” is a catchphrase that was first uttered in a discussion thread on the Chinese MOP forums where the OP (original poster) went on a rant about how he was someone to be respected and admired. The “holier-than-thou” tone of his post led to more than 4900 tounge-in-cheek replies and dozens of video parodies using the song “Only a Legend” (哥只是个传说) by Chen Xu (陈旭).

Pretty Girls, Ugly Faces

Pretty Girls Ugly Faces is a photo fad in which girls take pictures of themselves while posing in an unflattering manner, defying the stereotypical understanding that women take self-portraits to obscure attributes they deem negative. Though a Tumblr blog was created for these photos in 2011, the fad did not take off until a subreddit was created in July 2012.

Search Interest

Smaller search peaks for “selfie” in the early 2000s may be attributed to a misspelling of name Selphie Tilmitt^[22], a character in the Final Fantasy game series. Additionally, the term was used for fans of the alternative rock band Self, who released their first album in 1993.^[26][27]

External References