The true creator of the Selfie Stick

Do you know how the Selfie Stick or Selfie Pole came about? Who invented this ingenious device that is so popular today? In this article, we will talk about the true story of the selfie stick that few people know.

It is an extending rod used to take selfies with a wider angle of coverage. Although it became a hugely popular accessory starting in 2014, the real question is: when did it actually first appear?

An American claims to have invented the famous “selfie stick” about ten years ago, but it has been discovered that this accessory has existed for more than twenty years — possibly even centuries. It was originally invented in Japan, where it was long dismissed as a useless invention.

The True Origin of the Selfie Stick

In early 2015, the user @_tessr posted a photo of a book published in 1995 titled “101 Useless Japanese Inventions.” In that book, a selfie stick appears long before it became a worldwide trend.

Originally called “Extender” (エクステンダー), the first selfie stick was launched by Minolta in 1983. It was part of a kit sold specifically for taking self-portraits, complete with a shutter button at the end of the stick.

The original description — “camera on a stick for self-portraits” — invited users to take the photo without needing help, especially on trips where asking a stranger to take the picture felt awkward.

Why Was the Selfie Stick Once Useless?

Why didn’t this invention succeed at the time the Japanese created it? It is not certain, but the most likely reasons were the lack of a front-facing screen, the extra cost of the kit, and other practical factors that made the selfie stick unappealing back then.

Even today, there are still people who consider the selfie stick a useless invention. In fact, the selfie stick is slowly losing relevance thanks to better front-facing cameras with wide-angle lenses, which remove the need for a stick altogether.

So was the selfie stick really made by the Japanese? This is uncertain; it is difficult to identify the true creator, as some photos from 1925 appear to show someone using a similar device.

Unfortunately, there is no way to know for sure, but someone in the past probably tried to tie a camera to a stick to take photos. Today, it would be hard to sue anyone for plagiarism over something like this, and any such legal battle would be as useless as the device itself once seemed.

That said, I believe the Japanese were the first to put together a complete version with a built-in shutter button — much like how the Japanese of the time considered this invention useless. Do you find it useful? And why has it become so popular now?