They just chose their word for 2013

and that word is selfie

You know

a picture you take of yourself

usually with a smartphone and usually uploaded to the Internet with an ironic hashtag

and all too often it’s taken with a duckface

According to a statement on the Oxford Dictionaries’ blog

they choose words that aren’t necessarily new

but that assert some kind of prominence in society

The word selfie has been traced as far back as 2002

but it’s grown more than 17,000 percent this year alone

The statement goes on to say about selfie

If it’s good enough for the Obamas and the Pope

then it’s good enough for Word of the Year

Another word they considered was binge-watch

the practice of watching a million episodes of a TV show in a row through a smart device

They also considered showrooming

a word that refers to the practice of going to a store to check out items

and then going home to buy them online for less money

thus, screwing the store

Another word nominee was twerk

That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Those words are all overused enough to qualify

but Oxford really wanted to choose a word that truly reflected the state of our present culture

and selfie was the perfect choice

because it genuinely captures how self-obsessed we’re all becoming

We’ve all got Facebook pages for our hobbies

We all have Kickstarters

where we ask our friends and families to give us money

for whatever we feel like doing besides working for someone else

The Internet is conditioning us all to believe how important we are

and that is turning our attention inward

We’re now more concerned with our profile pictures

than with what’s going on in the world around us

Oxford crystallized this point by choosing the word selfie

So maybe we can use this as a learning opportunity

to open our eyes about our selfish ways

Maybe we can start pointing our cameras at other things than ourselves

Maybe we can start pointing them at worthwhile causes

that need attention or natural beauty or social injustices

and strive to make unselfie the word for 2014

Or if that’s too much to ask of society

then maybe we can just strive for a little less duckface

Tonight, let’s talk about that by following me on Twitter at The Resident