selfie

A self-portrait that you posted online. It is specifically a picture with your face in it that you took yourself (meaning another human being was not involved) and it is shared on one of the many social networking sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The term selfie was apparently invented by an Australian man who took a drunk self-portrait (a drelfie, if you please). There's no lack of other selfie types including the belfie, felfie, helfie, and shelfie to name a few.

There's also the ussie. "Oh you wanna do a selfie?" Poses with photographer. "I call that an ussie. "Perhaps the most famous ussie is the one that broke Twitter during the Oscars (see below).

Historical perspective: In 2014, according to The Wall Street Journal, Samsung may have received more publicity during the Academy Awards broadcast from Ellen DeGeneres's “selfie” than from paid advertising. Samsung spent $20 million on ads during the week’s broadcast, but DeGeneres gathered stars for a “selfie”—shot with a Samsung smartphone—that became a retweet more than 3 million times (beating President Obama’s record for the most retweeted posting in Twitter history). “At one point Samsung was getting about 900 mentions a minute on social media, far exceeding the impact of the conventional ads. Still, the Samsung stunt didn’t come off without a hitch. Twitter sleuths quickly pointed out that while backstage, DeGeneres was tweeting with a rival iPhone."

During 2012 - 2018, more than 250 people world wide died while taking selfies :( There were actually 259 selfie-related deaths from October 2011 to November 2017 as published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care.

And believe it or not, Buzz Aldrin is credited with taking the first selfie (in space) on July 20, 1969. FYI #NationalSelfieDay is June 21.