By Sarah Mahan

The Selma Times-Journal

 

Trends — by their very nature — change with time, and as they change, so do the words used to describe them. ‘Selife,’ one of this year’s growing trends, has been voted Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year.

Selfies — or pictures you take of yourself — are generally taken with a camera phone. The pictures are posted to some form of social media, including Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, where users share photos of themselves and their friends with online members of social media communities.

“I think it describes who you are,” 16-year-old Rykia Henry said. “Like if you’re out on a sunny day, I’ll take one. It gives people insight on what you’re up to.”

Henry said she started taking selfies this year, reflecting a spread of the trend that started in 2002 after being used on an Australian website, according to Oxford Dictionaries Online.

Twelve-year-old Kiya Brown said she started taking pictures in fifth grade.

“It’s like a picture of you alone, not your whole body just your face,” she said. “I put it on Instagram or maybe the home screen of my phone.”

The popularity of taking selfies, which often depends on the ability to take pictures with a cell phone, has spread to from teenagers to 20-somethings.

Denunta Dial, 24, agrees selfies are a form of self-expression in a time where children are growing up with electronics.

“You pick the background, you pick the clothes, you pick how you want to look,” Dial said. “So in a way it does define who you are or how you want a photo to define you.”

For teenagers it is a common practice, but young children and some parents did not recognize the word.

Samantha White, 9, did not know what a selfie was — possibly because her mother said she was too young to have a cell phone.

Despite the popularity of selfies, differing opinions were offered on how long they would be sticking around.

“No [they won’t be] at least tot for long,” Henry said. “[Trends] changes every year.”

Dial said as long as it is convenient for people to take them for their social media profiles, selfies — in some form — will stay common.

“When someone looks at your profile, you want to know who someone is and the best way to do it is to have a photo of yourself,” he said. “I don’t think the way think the way people define it will be long gone. I guess as long as people are taking photos of themselves, it will be a mainstream thing.”