Selfie Is Word of the Year

Congratulations, narcissistic millennials: you’ve changed the dictionary. Yay? “Selfie” is Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year, the publishers announced on Tuesday. “It seems like everyone who is anyone has posted a selfie somewhere on the Internet,” wrote Oxford English Dictionary on its blog. “If it is good enough for the Obamas or the pope, then it is good enough for Word of the Year.” It beat out some other words you’ve heard (and probably despise too): twerk, bitcoin, and showrooming. Selfie had already been on the dictionary’s radar, since it was picked as a word to watch last year. Apparently selfie’s first known usage was apparently in 2002, by an Australian who posted a hungover photo an Internet forum, calling it a “selfie.” The rest is history.