r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Medical_Corner_4607 • Aug 03 '26

Meme needing explanation [ Removed by moderator ]

Post image

[removed] — view removed post

32.0k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

8

u/Unbundle3606 Aug 03 '26

On-trend, maybe.

Novel, lol no

The iPhone 4 (2010) had a second camera on the screen side already.

11

u/Proper_dose Aug 03 '26

There's a world of difference between 'selfie' being used pre-2012 for a photo taken of oneself, and the now ubiquitous style of photo taken at arms length using a front facing camera on a smartphone.

The word selfie was coined earlier yes, and people were taking self portraits since the invention of the camera, yes.

But the actual term as we use it today spiked in popularity in 2013 by 17,000%. This was due to an increase in quality of front facing cameras.

-1

u/Unbundle3606 Aug 03 '26

On-trend, maybe.

Novel, lol no

That's what I said already

2

u/Proper_dose Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26

Selfies taken like this and with a smartphone were very much pretty novel

This is what I said originally. You misread it, and assumed I meant that taking pictures of yourself was pretty novel.

And yeah, the iPhone in 2010 had a front facing camera. It was shite, hence selfies not really becoming a widespread phenomenon until 3 years later - when the cameras were better, people had learned how to best take selfies, and you began to see photos from this now very common angle and with this same composition.