selfie's progeny
Australians can proudly claim selfie as one of their most widely-used contributions to the English language. The ABC is also proud to have given the word a push when it was used by a participant in a chat room on their site in 2002. The participant stated later on that the word was in popular use at the time.
But we now have many variations on selfie, starting with the belfie that became popular in 2021, thanks to Kim Kardashian. This is a bum selfie. There is lots of advice online about how to prepare and pose for the perfect belfie. You can do your own homework on that.
Then there is the braggie, the bragging selfie, posted online to make everyone else jealous. It might be a selfie taken in a glamorous resort just to show off the kind of holiday you can afford. It is estimated that one in ten selfies are of the showing-off variety.
There is an art to the de-glam selfie where you appear without make-up, lights, stylish clothes, etc. There should be no artifice — just you in your trackie daks but somehow wonderful.
The carfie, or ‘car selfie’, could be regarded as a subset of the braggie, because the car isn’t just any old car.
The drelfie, or ‘drunk selfie’, solves that problem where, after a big night out, you can wake up the next morning with a hangover but no memory of all the things you did and how off-your-face hysterically wiped-out you were. Take lots of drelfies through the evening and you can watch the show the next morning.
A dronie is a high-tech selfie, one taken using a drone fitted with a camera and responding to commands from the user. The drone will capture the perfect moment and then theatrically zoom up and away .
A footsie is a foot selfie. A pedicure is essential preparation. A nakie is a picture of yourself naked. Mostly it is artfully posed but Google warns that ‘some results may be explicit’. You can take your pick with pelfie — it is either a selfie with a pet or a selfie of your penis. And a shoefie is a picture of your shoes while you are wearing them. Shoes can be revealing of personality.
Selfie has taken a darker turn with the killfie, the selfie taken in some dangerous location, such as a volcano, or in a risk-taking pose, such as balancing on the edge of a cliff. Apparently India leads the world in the number of deaths resulting from killfies. Mostly it is young men who go for this kind of selfie. This is related to selficide, the self-inflicted death of a person taking selfies in a highly dangerous situation.
A melfie is more complicated because it is your image taken in a mirror, which usually requires an interesting set-up with funny poses or lighting effects or dress-ups or pets.
A twofie is a selfie with two people in the image but an ussie or ‘us selfie’ is a selfie taken with two or more friends packed into the photo. Another name for it is a wefie. A relfie is a ‘rel (relationship) selfie’, usually one which presents you and your significant other as romantically perfect and insanely happy with each other.
A shelfie is a picture of your shelf with your books, chosen knick-knacks, special belongings, etc, on display. This is me, it says, this is what I have chosen.
A slofie is something that became a possibility in 2019 — the ‘slomo selfie’. The internet was awash with them very quickly.
A stealthie is, in general terms, any photo that you take in secret, but more specifically it is a selfie that you take using someone else’s phone so that your image is on their phone.
A vaxxie became popular during COVID. It is the selfie that you take as the needle goes in.
The velfie is the video that you take of yourself.
So selfie is the story of one small Australian coinage that has conquered the world.