“Selfie” becomes Oxford’s word of 2013
Oxford Dictionary has chosen “selfie” as their word of the year. Selfies have become increasingly popular over the last year with the increase of smartphones and with the creation of snapchat. “I definitely take a lot of selfies for snapchat,” said Martin. “It’s fun to see a picture of your friends for a small period of time and have a conversation that way.”
December 18, 2013
This year, Oxford Dictionary selected the word “selfie” as the word of 2013. Selfies are becoming very popular with the invention of the forward facing camera and smart phones.
Oxford chooses a word that is very popular and has attracted a lot of attention in the year to date. A selfie is defined as a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website. People took selfies before social media came around, social media just helped selfies become more popular. It also made it easier to share amongst peers.
Selfie is very popular on Instagram, a social media site that only allows posts of pictures and videos with an optional caption.
“Selfies are really common on Instagram because you can choose basically how you look in any picture because you can see yourself before you take it,” explained junior Marla Martin.
Snapchat, an application used to send pictures back and forth between friends for certain period of time, is used very often among teens. With the forward facing camera, it is easy to send a selfie via snapchat.
“I definitely take a lot of selfies for snapchat,” said Martin. “It’s fun to see a picture of your friends for a small period of time and have a conversation that way.”
Not everyone takes selfies, but everyone knows what it is. Social media has amplified the ability to share a selfie, and with more variety to post a selfie, more people post them.
“I don’t take a lot of selfies, I usually just see them and don’t think much of it,” explained junior Connor Gamble.
Selfies are becoming so popular, significant political figures are taking interest in the. President Barack Obama was caught joining in Danish Prime Minister’s selfie.
“I wouldn’t think the president would do something like that, but I guess thats just how popular they are,” said Gamble.
With selfies becoming more and more popular every day, it was the obvious choice for the 2013 Oxford Dictionary word of the year. What is not obvious, is what the 2014 word of the year will be. There are almost infinite options and it is needless to say that the curiosity lingers of what word society can come up with next.
Lucien Lemanski • Feb 20, 2014 at 2:50 am
Charlie great job writing the article. I liked how you blended the lead and the nutgraph together in this article. Plus it was good how you handled a funny topic well.
Kelly Roehrig • Feb 17, 2014 at 1:58 pm
Nice job Charlie, I thought you included a lot of really interesting information, especially the part about Obama and the Danish Prime Minister’s selfie. My only suggestion would be to make the lead more lighthearted and less like a dictionary definition, especially since the topic is pretty lighthearted. Otherwise great work!
Quentin Ikuta • Feb 15, 2014 at 8:16 pm
This article initially grabbed my attention when I saw that Selfie was Oxford dictornary’s word of the year. I did not know selfie was an actual, recognized word until I read this article. Good use of quotes from multiple sources that may or may not take a lot of selfies, and nice use of facts throughout the article educating one on what a selfie is and why it was recognized by Oxford. Also, nice ending – introducing a statement to create a new wonder in the reader’s mind, and possibly coming back to read more articles.