The Rise of the SELFi3S™: The Evolution and Disruptive Future of the Selfie

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As a form of folk art - or just a way to document a memorable moment - the ‘selfie’ represents the digital age’s self-portrait. 

The rise of camera-equipped smartphones and photo-focused social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram propelled the selfie into the spotlight. In fact, at one point the word selfie became the much-coveted ‘Word Of The Year’ from the Oxford English Dictionary. 

While many see selfies as a recent trend, and they largely are, thanks to the ease of smartphone photography - the photo style actually has a colorful history. 

One of the first known photographic self-portraits dates from 1839 when Robert Cornelius snapped a photo of himself outside his family’s store. Credit for the first known use of the word ‘selfie’ actually predates the iPhone age. 

In 2002, An Australian man used the word in an ABC Science Online forum after posting a photo of his post-fall bloody lip. “Sorry about the focus; it was a selfie.”

But the rise of the selfie is much more than just the fruit of better technology. Researchers from St. Petersburg State University argue the popularity of the selfie is 

“caused by the convenient visual format of such communicative messages. Firstly, the visual format of the selfie explicates the main trend in the Western values (living a full life, experience strong emotions). Secondly, it allows for the active circulation of selfies on the internet: the visual pattern of photographed self-portraits facilitates reading and spreading those messages on the web.”

Many social scientists and researchers argue humans are social animals - meaning the selfie functions as a form of social art, a tool to