‘Selfie’ Becomes The Word Of The Year For 2013

A number of questionable “words” were added to the Oxford Dictionaries earlier this year, which included phablet, bitcoin and twerk. One word that we’re sure many of you groaned at its inclusion was the word “selfie.” Well – prepare to groan a little bit more as Oxford Dictionaries has announced selfie has been named the word of the year.

The word selfie beat out other newly-added words like FOMO and BYOD due to its surge in popularity over the past year. According to Oxford Dictionaries editors, selfie’s usage has increase a total of 17,000% from this time last year. How many actual worth-while selfie photos were taken when that word was said is completely unknown, although we’re sure it’s a very low percentage of the total mentions.

Selfie didn’t actually turn into a phrase until 2002, where the Oxford University Press managed to trace its origins to an Australian forum which was describing a self-taken photo published by someone after a they wipeout from one too many drinks. After that, the #selfie hashtag first popped up on Flickr in 2004.

So there you have it – the world has once again adopted another popular word whose origins are from the tech world. As great as that is, we were secretly hoping twerk would get the gold star this year.

Daniel Perez
Categories: Cellphones, General, Tablets, Web