This Is An Ad For Something

Headline Of The Day

Details. (Tipped by JMG reader Daddy Ray)

Supreme Selfie

NYC Museums Ban Selfie Sticks

Via the New York Observer:

The MoMA is one of the first in NYC to officially ban the stick, although it’s technically always been restricted. A representative from the museum stated, “It has long been a policy that visitors may only use handheld devices to take photos, without any camera extension devices. We have simply added selfie-sticks to this policy, which is in place to ensure the safety of our visitors and the Museum’s works of art.” Other museums have either already banned the sticks or are seriously considering it. Gothamist reported that the Guggenheim and The Frick no longer allow them, and that the Met hasn’t yet reached a decision.

The official reason for the ban is the possibility of damage to artwork.

The Belfie Stick

From the website: "Finally, back side selfies! With our bendable stick, you can position your back side without the need of a mirror and shoot the exact angle you are looking for. Bend in ways you never thought possible with our patent-pending design!"

Regular selfie sticks, of course, have been around for a decade. Yesterday the Guardian profiled the man who filed the first patent application in 2005. An excerpt:

Wayne Fromm was on holiday in Florence in 2002, with his daughter Sage, when they ran into the classic tourist’s problem. They wanted a photograph of themselves on the Ponte Vecchio, but it was crowded, there was nowhere to rest the camera and they felt awkward about asking somebody else to take their picture. Being an inventor, mostly of toys, Fromm was not going to ignore the problem. “We were just alternating pictures,” he tells me from Las Vegas, where he’s been attending this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. “So when we came back to Toronto I started thinking about how I could create something.” It would take Fromm a long time to perfect a telescopic pole and grip that you could travel with, but which would hold a camera far enough away without slipping, breaking or being too heavy. “I spent a couple of years looking at umbrellas, taking them apart,” he says. “I was studying magnetic pickup tools. I was studying anything that had extendable segments and a rod. I just kept meeting one impasse after another.” Finally, in 2005, he filed patents – later granted – for a device he called the Quik Pod (as in “quick tripod”).

(Tipped by JMG reader Thom)

PSA For The gAySPCA

(Tipped by JMG reader Jake)

NASA Promotes Global Earth Day Selfies

NASA wants you to step outside on Tuesday and send them an Earth Day selfie.

For the first time in more than a decade, five NASA Earth-observing missions will be launched into space in a single year. To celebrate this milestone, NASA is inviting people all around the world to step outside on Earth Day, April 22, take a "selfie," and share it with the world on social media. Designed to encourage environmental awareness and recognize the agency's ongoing work to protect our home planet, NASA's "Global Selfie" event asks people everywhere to take a picture of themselves in their local environment. On Earth Day, NASA will monitor photos posted to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and Flickr. Photos posted to Twitter, Instagram or Google+ using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie, or to the #GlobalSelfie Facebook event page and the #GlobalSelfie Flickr group will be used to create a crowd-sourced mosaic image of Earth – a new “Blue Marble” built bit-by-bit with #GlobalSelfie photos.

Today's NYC Tabloids

Obama Snaps Selfie At Mandela Funeral

At today's funeral for Nelson Mandela, President Obama posed for a selfie with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt. This landed the president on the mocking Tumblr, Selfies At Funerals, and has spawned the usual ridicule across Teabagistan.

Worst Selfie Ever

Details.

Oxford's Word Of The Year: Selfie

Last week the Survey of Global English declared the word of 2013 to be a number: 404.  This week the Oxford Dictionary selected "selfie."

Selfie can actually be traced back to 2002 when it was used in an Australian online forum. The word gained momentum throughout the English-speaking world in 2013 as it evolved from a social media buzzword to mainstream shorthand for a self-portrait photograph. Its linguistic productivity is already evident in the creation of numerous related spin-off terms showcasing particular parts of the body like helfie (a picture of one’s hair) and belfie (a picture of one’s posterior); a particular activity – welfie (workout selfie) and drelfie (drunken selfie), and even items of furniture – shelfie and bookshelfie.

They note that "selfie" has not yet been added to their dictionary. Other words on this year's list: bitcoin, twerk, showrooming, and schmeat. Schmeat?