We are living in a ‘selfie’ world

When the South Korean digital giant Samsung put an extra lens in their camera that allows the photographer to take his own picture without reversing his camera, no one knew that it would start a new kind of revolution. Now most cameras and a great many smartphones in the world market have this unique feature.

Thanks to the social media network, notably Twitter or Facebook, photographers who take their own photos wherever they are (even during dinner or supper time) put them in their Facebook accounts and voila, they set the world afire. In fact last year, they finally found a word for a person that takes his or her own photo using that type of camera… a “selfie.” This is the newest word in the English Language and how it has caught on!

Even world leaders couldn’t resist doing a selfie. Last December during the Memorial Service for the late freedom icon Nelson Mandela, US President Barrack Obama took a selfie with British Prime Minister David Cameron and the beauteous Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Of course international news photographers had a heyday taking photographs of the US President taking a selfie and the next day, pundits had a lot of fun poking at Pres. Obama because those photographers also took a shot at First Lady Michelle Obama who gave a huge frown.

Even Pope Francis agreed to have a selfie with many pilgrims visiting St. Peter’s Square, which only proves that this Pope has a common touch with the people who love him. It just makes me wonder how many pilgrims went home with their selfie with Pope Francis…something that never happened with previous popes. I just can’t wait for the time when Pope Francis comes to Cebu City for the International Eucharistic Congress…who knows, I could be lucky and he would agree to have a selfie with me.

Perhaps the biggest surprise that we learned this week was when Time Magazine came up with their own surveys as to which cities in the world had the most “selfies” taken. Time magazine came up with their own research on this coming up the number of selfies taken per 100,000 population and the results were stunning as it was surprising.

Number one on Time Magazine’s list was Makati and Pasig cities, which had 258 selfies taken per 100,000 population. Second was Manhattan, New York City, which had 202. Third place went to Miami, Florida with 155, while Anaheim and Sta. Ana, California came in fourth place with 147 selfies. Petaling Jaya, Malaysia was fifth on the list with 142, while the sixth slot went to Tel Aviv, Israel with 139. Number seven went to Manchester, England with 114, while the eight slot went to Milan, Italy with 108. Cebu City bagged the ninth slot with 99 Selfies taken while Tenth place went to Georgetown, Malaysia at 95.

Of course Filipinos are proud to have three of its major cities, on top of the Time Magazine “Selfie” Cities list. So finally, Selfies are no longer called weird or freaks… because we have become “Mainstream”… more so that during the Academy Awards last week, Events Host Ellen DeGeneres took a Selfie with multi-awarded Actress Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lawrence and Actor Brad Pitt. Her objective was to make a world Twitter record for the most Twitted Selfie and apparently she got what she wished as Twitter Service sort of froze for several minutes because of the record demand. Indeed, we are living in a “Selfie World”.

Now that Time Magazine has gotten into the Selfie Bandwagon, you can be sure that there will be more Selfies to be shot and sent to Twitter or Facebook. So you can bet that by next year… the Selfie rankings could change. But knowing us Filipinos… all the more we should be making more Selfies in order for us to keep up with the rest of the Selfie world.

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With the Presidential elections less than three years away…suddenly we are hearing all sorts of noises from potential Presidentiables who want to test the waters to replace Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III in Malacañang. Of course Vice-President Jejomar Binay is in the forefront of this up and coming Presidential race. He is not only inside the race track… he is already in the starting grid with engines running. Though he doesn’t know it, but the time this race gets started, he just might ran out of fuel.

So if you hear a Senator, a Congressman, a Mayor or Governor or even the court jester name as potential candidates, my take on this is…it’s all baloney! This brings me back to my story about the Philippine Bus, a very rickety and decrepit old bus so full of passengers, many of them already on top of the roof… yet the passengers are only preoccupied with the question, “Who will be our next driver?” These passengers do not care at all if this bus would plunge into the ravine of fall off the skyway because it is so unstable. In short, the Philippine Bus needs to be fixed before we change the driver!

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For email responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mo-pzcom.com or vsbobita@gmail.com. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.