However, the introduction of the selfie stick revolutionized group photography, making it easier than ever to snap the ideal shot. While the selfie stick may seem like a modern invention, its roots trace back further than one might think. The origins of homemade selfie sticks can be traced back to as early as 1925. An image from that year depicts a man using a long stick, extending beyond the frame, to capture a self-portrait with his wife. During this era, amateur box cameras lacked the ability to focus on self-portraits when held at arm’s length, necessitating the use of remote shutter devices such as sticks or cables. The concept of a selfie stick similar to what we know today can be seen in the 1969 Czechoslovak sci-fi film “I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen.” In one scene, a character uses a silver stick to take a photo of herself and another character. She smiles at the end of the stick, which then flashes and immediately prints out a photo from the handle. In 1983, the Minolta Disc-7 camera featured a convex mirror on its front, allowing people to compose self-portraits. Its packaging even showed the camera mounted on a stick for this purpose. A “telescopic extender” for compact handheld cameras was patented by Ueda Hiroshi and Mima Yujiro in 1983, and a Japanese selfie stick was featured in a 1995 book titled “101 Un-Useless Japanese Inventions“. While dismissed as a “useless invention” at the time, the selfie stick later gained global popularity in the 21st century. Canadian inventor Wayne Fromm patented his Quik Pod in 2005, which became commercially available in the United States the following year. In 2012, Yeong-Ming Wang patented a “multi-axis omni-directional shooting extender” capable of holding a smartphone, winning a silver medal at the 2013 Concours Lepine. The term “selfie stick” didn’t gain widespread use until 2014. Advanced versions of selfie sticks can even hold laptop computers for selfies taken with a webcam. By the fall of 2015, the market offered a wide variety of selfie sticks. Molly McCugh of Wired magazine observed in October 2015, “Some are very, very long; some aren’t so long; some are bedazzled. Some look like hands. Some are spoons. But they are all, at the end of the day, one thing: A stick that takes selfies.” Time magazine listed the selfie stick in its 25 best inventions of 2014, while the New York Post dubbed it the most controversial gift of the year. By the end of December 2014, Bloomberg News reported that selfie sticks had dominated the holiday season as the “must-have” gift. However, the selfie stick has faced criticism for its perceived association with the narcissism and self-absorption of contemporary society. Commentators in 2015 even nicknamed it the “Narcisstick” or “Wand of Narcissus.”
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