“Selfie” is the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year

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(Newswire.net — December 6, 2013) Miami, Florida — The decision was unanimous and the term “selfie” has been named as Word of the Year by the Oxford Dictionary. The dictionary defined it as “informal: a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website: occasional selfies are acceptable, but posting a new picture of yourself every day isn’t necessary”.

 

From the Obamas’ to the Pope taking selfies, it’s not surprising that the digital photography beat other famous terms these days, including “twerk” and “binge-watch”.


Self-portraits tagged as “selfie” seem to first surface on social media and photo-sharing sites. Its usage has been very widespread in the past year or so.


Self-portraits are nothing new, but the technology today has made it even easier to produce and share selfies.


On Instagram alone, there are millions of selfies being posted daily. About 23 million photos have been uploaded with the tag #selfie, while about 70 million photos use the tag #me.


Time magazine also included “selfie” in its Top 10 buzzwords of 2012 (at No 9).


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Selfies are typically taken with a hand-held digital camera or camera phone. Although this practice does not require professional digital photography skills, it is great to know tricks on how to master this new wave of photography.


For some useful tips on how to take interesting digital photographs even if you’re completely new to photography, check out Learn Digital Photography.





Author: Tania Shipman


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