International Selfie day

zA selfie is a self-portrait photograph or a short video, typically taken with an electronic camera or smartphone. The camera would be usually held at arm's length or supported by a selfie stick instead of being controlled with a self-timer or remote. The concept of shooting oneself while viewing their own image in the camera's LCD monitor is also known as self-recording.

Selfie, as it has become known, is one of the most popular forms of self-portraiture in modern life. The availability of current apparatus allows anyone to produce a self-portrait.

Selfies are often shared on social media, via social networking services such as Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, and Snapchat. Video selfies longer than several minutes are more likely to fall into vlog category.

A selfie may include multiple subjects; as long as the photo is being taken by one of the subjects featured, it is considered a selfie. However, some other terms for selfies with multiple people include usie, groufie, and wefie. Alternatively, one can take a mirror selfie, with the camera pointed at a mirror instead of directly at one's face, often to get a full-body shot.

Etymology

"Selfie" is an example of hypocorism – a type of word formation that is popular in Australia where it was in general use before gaining wider acceptance.

The first known use of the word selfie in any paper or electronic medium appeared in an Australian internet forum on 13 September 2002 – Karl Kruszelnicki's 'Dr Karl Self-Serve Science Forum' – in a post by Nathan Hope. Although Hope later dismissed the notion that he coined the term, describing it as "something that was just common slang at the time, used to describe a picture of yourself", he wrote the following: "Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer [sic] and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps. I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie."

By 2013, the word "selfie" had become commonplace enough to be monitored for inclusion in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary, which announced it as the "word of the year" in November and gave it an Australian origin.

In August 2014, "selfie" was officially accepted for use in the word game Scrabble.

Injuries while taking photos

The first known selfie-related death occurred 15 March 2014, when a man electrocuted himself on top of a train.

2014, 'The Year of the Selfie', was also the year Makati and Pasig, 'Selfie Capital of the World', saw their first selfie-related death when a 14-year-old girl fell from the 3rd floor staircase landing to the 2nd.

In 2015 it was reported that more people had been killed taking selfies that year than by shark attacks. Other publications have debated that analysis. Takers of selfie photographs have fallen to their deaths while losing their balance in a precarious position, and others have been wounded or killed while posing with handguns which have accidentally fired.

Concerned about the increasing number of incidents in Russia where attempts to set up a unique selfie had led to injuries and deaths, the Russian Ministry of the Interior released a "Selfie Safety Guide" in 2015 that warned selfie enthusiasts about some common dangerous behaviors. Moscow, Russia's most active selfie-taking city, is estimated to have 8 selfie-takers per 100,000 people, and ranks 301st among cities worldwide.

A 2015 study showed that 20% of young Britons had taken selfies while driving a car. Manchester has the highest amount of selfie-takers per capita in Great Britain with 114 per 100,000 people, and ranks 7th internationally. The Italian chief of state police expressed concern over the same phenomenon in Italy on the occasion of the launch of a short film with the title "Selfie". Milan is the 8th most active selfie-taking city in the world with 108 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.

According to Professor Amanda du Preez, there are least three types of selfie pictures documenting death, selfies unknowingly taken before death, where the taker's death is almost witnessed, or where the taker stands by while someone else dies.

In 2019 a teen left an imprint on the ground where he landed after falling more than four stories while attempting to take a selfie with his friends on a bridge in Dallas, Texas. He had multiple serious injuries, but he survived.

In Wikipedia is a list of serious injuries and deaths in which one or more subjects of a selfie were killed or injured before, during, or after taking a photo of themselves, with the accident at least in part attributed to taking the photo.

Overview

The United States Department of Transportation estimated that in 2014, the so-called "year of the selfie", 33,000 people were injured while driving and using a cell-phone in some fashion, which can include talking, listening, and "manual button/control actuation". A 2015 survey by Erie Insurance Group found that 4% of all drivers admitted to taking selfies while driving.

The Washington Post reported in January 2016 that "about half" of at least 27 "selfie related" deaths in 2015 had occurred in India. There is no official data on the number of people who died taking selfies in India, but reports show from 2014 to August 2016 that there have been at least 54 deaths in India while taking selfies. The Indian Ministry of Tourism asked states to identify and barricade "selfie danger" areas, its first national attempt to deal with the selfie deaths. Mumbai Police identified at least 16 danger zones after a man drowned attempting to save a selfie-taker. No-selfie zones were also established in certain areas of the Kumbh Mela because organizers feared that bottlenecks caused by selfie-takers could spark stampedes.

A 2018 study of news reports showed that there were 259 selfie deaths in 137 incidents reported globally between October 2011 and November 2017, with the highest occurrences in India, followed by Russia, United States, and Pakistan. The mean age was 23 years old, with male deaths outnumbering female about three to one.

From January 2008 to July 2021 it was estimated that there were 379 people who died in selfie related accidents.