I won’t say I invented the “selfie”.

I will say I was taking arm’s-length pictures of myself years ago. Decades ago. Before “selfie” had a name.

That is what comes of covering sports events overseas, World Cups and Olympics, in particular … and not being willing to ask the locals to take a picture.

If I were in California, I no doubt could find examples of my own “selfies”. Stored away somewhere.

The difference between those early selfies and the modern version?

The embarrassment, we felt back then, seems gone now.

I took a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower, or at a Shinto temple in Japan or before Opening Ceremonies in Sydney … but I was as furtive about it.

I attempted to compose myself, had my camera ready (no photo-taking phones, back then) and took the photo as quickly as possible. I didn’t want people to notice.

Why?

Couple of reasons.

1) It seemed pathetic. Rather than go to the “trouble” of asking someone to take my photo, I just did it myself. Because I was alone. (And it rarely turned out well; without practice, a selfie is going to be off-center, or blurred. Or you forget to get your thumb out of the way of the lens in a reversed camera.)

2) It seemed rather self-indulgent and attention-seeking. Look at me taking my own picture! Not that I was thinking that. As noted, I was embarrassed. But because I feared others would think I was an openly anti-social person not shy about letting others know it.

Anyway, selfies are a “thing” now, and people attract great attention to themselves in the process of getting them, often waylaying celebrities for inclusion in the selfie. The selfie has become a sort of scourge, and some invitations to social events now come with prohibitions against selfies. They are that common and trite.

Anyway, when I was taking pictures of myself, in the 1980s and 1990s, I rarely saw someone else doing the same thing.

The “selfie” is anything but new. Serious photographers took them a century ago. Amateur photographers were taking them decades ago. Including this one. But I never would have encouraged others to do the same. Like, fine a friend.