selfie

While the noun selfie is first attested in 2002 on an Australian website, becoming common Australian slang in that decade, it was not widely used internationally until 2012. The first usage of the #Selfie tag on instagram is recorded in January 2011. By 2013, it was selected as the OED’s word of the year. Part of this was likely that taking a selfie was cumbersome until front-facing cameras on phones became commonplace. They were first introduced on the iPhone 4 in mid-2010.

Google Trends graph for the word “selfie” from 2010 to 2024, showing no activity until 2012, a large spike in 2013, a second large spike in 2015, and then activity tailing off to present low baseline levels by 2019

I was surprised to learn that “selfie stick” was not popularized until 2014; the two terms are strongly associated in my head.