Selfie: Your 2013 Oxford English Dictionary word of the year

Time to celebrate!

Selfie
(Image credit: Instagram)

All kinds of people take selfies for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it's a self-esteem booster. Sometimes it's to remind loved ones, "Hey! I'm alive." And sometimes, you Snapchat a selfie while wearing your cat as a neck scarf because it's Tuesday, so why not?

Now, the Oxford English Dictionary is recognizing all your hard work squinting into a front-facing camera: The venerable gatekeepers of the English language have just made the term "selfie" their 2013 word of the year. Sorry, "twerk"!

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Chris Gayomali is the science and technology editor for TheWeek.com. Previously, he was a tech reporter at TIME. His work has also appeared in Men's Journal, Esquire, and The Atlantic, among other places. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.