Selfies have been around since the beginning of portraits. Take for example Van Gogh and his famous self portrait. The first photographic selfie was taken by chemist Robert Cornelius in 1839. Since the invention of social media in 2002, self-portraits have been taken to a new level. 

Hiroshi Ueda and Yujiro Mima created the extender stick. Ueda said that the extender stick was made because he had a hard time comfortably taking pictures with his wife while on a trip to Europe. When their patent ran out in 2003, Wayne Fromm, a Canadian inventor and entrepreneur picked up the “stick” and was still running with the idea in 2005.

The word “selfie” was coined by an Australian man named Nathan Hope. Hope got drunk on his 21st birthday and posted a picture on an online forum stating “sorry about the focus, it was a selfie.”

Sony invents the front facing camera right after social media site Myspace is created. Until the introduction of front-facing cameras, people had friends take their picture or took dozens of pictures using digital cameras to get the right angle for their profile picture.

Wayne Fromm adapts selfie stick for cellphones and files new patent. 

Myspace, the largest social media platform at the time, includes profile picture option. The “Myspace Pic” era encourages users to hold camera at arm’s length to take their own profile photo. 

The Emo/Sad selfie trend becomes popular. During it, people would dress in black or dark colors and look sad into the camera, usually wearing a lot of makeup.

Facebook is introduced eventually taking over Myspace. Facebook created a platform designed to and encourage higher quality profile pictures as well as the ability to post photos on its timeline. 

Apple releases the iPhone 4 with front-facing camera on their phones. This became an international phenomenon. Samsung estimates the average person will take about 25,000 selfies in their lifetime.

Instagram was first launched by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger from San Francisco, California. 

Instagram introduces hashtags and filters. By creating filters, users are able to edit their photos. Hashtags allowed the introduction of the “duck face” or “I woke up like this” trends.

Extreme selfie trend started by Tom Ryaboi, a Canadian, who posted a photo of himself atop a tall building in Toronto.

“Selfies” is added to the Oxford Dictionary. Usage frequency for the word “selfie” has increased 17,000% since 2013. 

The first selfie-related death occurs March 2014. A man electrocuted himself on top of a train while trying to get a selfie. Russia then released a “Selfie Safety Guide” in 2015. 

At the 86th Academy Awards, Ellen Degeneres took a selfie that broke the record of most re-tweeted image. It was shared over 2,000,000 times before the award show was over and caused Twitter to break for a short time. 

The selfie stick named by Time Magazine as one of the best inventions of 2014. 

Sharing your photos online is a popular and common trend and is part of our digital identity. While phone technology is as cutting edge as it can be at the moment, people are always looking for new ways to be creative. Whether it is creating a new trend like “I woke up like this” or making the first hologram, creativity is a vital part of our society.