last few weeks listening to the things coming out of the mouth of Toronto mayor Rob Ford,
the folks in Canada might disagree with that, though.
Yep, the 'selfie', the picture of self-absorption that we've been plastering all over and
Facebook and Twitter for what seems like the last 20 years, received its very own award.
It's the word of the year for 2013. Maybe Adam Levine, just named People Magazine's
"Sexiest Man Alive", will take a selfie and tweet it to his two million followers. By the
way, what year was "followers" named word of the year? I'm thinking it was 2009, which
may have been the year after "de-friended" took home top honors.
Thanks to Facebook and the iPhones, we are no longer bashful of taking pictures of ourselves.
At one time, taking pictures of oneself would be considered shameless, narcissistic, arrogant,
and even, well, rather strange. Not anymore. Social media has made it a different world
where taking pictures of ourselves has become as normal and natural as blinking. And we
don't think twice about it.
Sometimes we take selfies just because we don't want to ask some weirdo on the street to take
our pictures fearing we'll look really stupid or the fact that he might just run off with our
iPhone 4, 4S, 5, or 5S and just aren't in the mood (or shape) to chase them down to beat the
living crap out of them.
I'm betting that many of us take selfies in the mirror to see how we look with our clothes on,
off, or while doing some really strange things. Most of us will never admit it, but we do. We
take a picture, look at it, and delete it as fast as we can. Some of us, for some stupid reason,
(Anthony Weiner) send it to somebody, never believing the recipient would dare show it
to anybody else. Or you might be delusional like Geraldo Rivera and actually think your
body is so bitchin' at 70, that everybody on the planet wants to see it.
 |
| This could be the worst selfie ever |
of Toronto didn't indulge in selfies after smoking crack when he was in a drunken stooper.
By the way, do people really think it looks cool taking a picture of yourself in the mirror with
the camera off to the side? It's more absurd than the oversized baseball helmet David
Wright used to wear after he suffered a concussion. I think somebody finally pointed out to
him that he looks like a buffoon, just like many of us do when we take a selfie in the mirror
and actually post it on Facebook or Twitter. Get a grip.
Celebrities and professional athletes seem to take selfies more often than the regular Joe.
Remember Greg Oden, the former first-round pick of the Portland Trailblazers? Or how bout
Grady Sizemore and his famous "coffee-cup" pose? They never seem to remember to delete
those risque selfies and they somehow find their way to the Internet. Perhaps, they just don't
know how to erase them.
Perhaps, like many other things in life, we just get lazy or want a picture so instantly, we
don't think. We just take a selfie. Nothing is sacred anymore, not even to the Pope, who
got into the act of taking a selfie in the Vatican. Heck, if it's good enough for the Pope.
what's the big deal? He'll forgive me for being overly narcissistic, right? I'll just go to
confession, say 10 Hail Mary's, and I'll be cleansed.
Now that "selfie" is officially in the Oxford Dictionary and the word of the year, perhaps,
we'll soon discover who invented the selfie. I'm sure after seeing all the attention it can
bring them, one of the eight talentless Kardashian will take credit for it. Maybe Lamar
Odom will claim it was his idea.
My money's on Bobby Valentine. After all, he invented the sandwich wrap, the double-
switch, and he's been silent for a couple of weeks, so I'm sure he'll find the nearest microphone
and camera and scream to the world that it was Bobby V who invented the selfie!
0 comments:
Post a Comment