We should have seen this coming, but I must admit, I didn’t. Not at first and not for a long time. But now I have seen the light, and I realize that the selfie has been hijacked, co-opted, taken hostage — choose your term — the corporate PR hacks who run American culture.

Yes, the humble, lovable selfie has been hijacked by the corporate suits who do their best to ruin most of what’s good in the spontaneous culture of youth and Australian slang terms As you know, the “selfie” term emanated from Down Under where people like to put an “ie” sound after things they like, such as barbie for barbecue grill and selfie for a self-photographed cellphone photo.

As the conventional wisdom goes, and I’m quoting from a public relations brochure here: “PR is not a passive discipline and you don’t need to wait for something to happen before you publicize it. You can actively create PR opportunities that will get your company noticed.”

The brochure adds: “The launch of a new product, a move to new premises, the appointment of new staff, a large order or a milestone event —  these are all classic chances to publicize your business. But every other business is sending out the same type of press releases. So how do you make your story stand out?”

The answer is you get a famous baseball player to pretend to take a selfie with the president of the U.S., say Boston Red Sox cutie David Ortiz did the foul deed while visiting Barack Obama at the  White House — all the while with an endorsement deal with Samsung under his belt with an express wish from the Korean firm to “share images with fans.” Ahem. So that Ortiz-Obama selfie the other day was not a selfie at all, but more like what I would like to dub a ”PRfie” (and pronounced “pee-our-fee).

The Ortiz stunt was similar to the ”group selfie” Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres faked with her A-list celebrity pals that also went viral. And guess what?  DeGeneres also has a deal with Samsung. Has everyone sold out? Has no one no shame anymore? Has the selfie been co-opted to death now?

So I suggest that the media start calling these things for what they are: PRfies. And let the trendy word dictionaries like Urban Dictionary and Word Spy take note: Some selfies are not what they seem and they’ve been hijacked by the suits once again, for their own profit and glee.

“One of the most effective ways to get press coverage is to position your product as a PRfie, yes, disguised as an old-fashioned selfie,” says a friend of mine in the advertising business in a recent email. “But try to make sure that the media never picks up the ruse, or you’ll lose a lot of the buzz you generated.”

In this day and age, the PRfie has dethroned the selfie. It’s a real pity. The true selfie had such promise.

Cross-posted on the 7 Speed Reading blog.

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