On almost any photo sharing site, the word or hashtag “selfie” is used to accompany a picture taken by someone of themselves. This widespread word is deemed the word of the year for 2013, according to Britain’s Oxford University Press.

“I just think that Instagram and all that happened and then the filters; that’s how it came about,” sophomore Amanda Baunach said.

Selfie was first used in 2002 on an Australian online forum, and the hashtag appeared on Flickr, a photo sharing website, in 2004, according to the editorial director for Oxford Dictionaries Judy Pearsall. The word went viral around 2012 when it became an established term.

The United States and the United Kingdom are usually assigned separate words of the year, but this year the two countries matched up well with their lingo, according to ABC News. Both countries have the same word or the year: selfie.

“Girls do it cause they’re really bored. They like walk into the bathroom and take like 20 selfies. I do it just as a joke to my friends when we have nothing to talk about,” sophomore Austin Vickery said.

There are restaurant selfies, bathroom selfies and more horrifically, funeral selfies.

“There’s like “selfie Sunday” on Instagram, and you take a selfie for that. I don’t take a lot throughout the week. I guess whenever I’ve going somewhere or I look good I take one. People take them to get likes. You put selfies somewhere, you don’t just keep them,” Baunach said.

Selfies have become an integrated part of teenage and even adult society. Not also selfies are becoming a phenomena, the talk about selfies is also breaking professional headlines.

CNBC reporter Jane Wells wrote a story titled “Funeral ‘selfies’? Yes, people actually do that” that discussed some of the ins and outs of taking selfies.

“Believe me, I’m as guilty as anyone. I’ve posted selfies looking my absolute worst all done up in foil under a hair dryer at the salon. I, like so many others, need to step away from the “send” and “share” buttons. But even I wouldn’t snap a self-portrait inside a funeral home with Grandma visible in her open casket behind me,” Wells said in her story on CNBC.

Not surprisingly, a Tumblr blog has been gathering these depressing selfie photos for a collection called “Selfies at Funerals.” With the self-absorbed and private-business-made-public world people live in, it’s not surprising that shameful selfies have surfaced from social media.

Online Slate magazine’s assistant editor Katy Waldman feels that the outrage over these selfie photos is a bit overdramatic and says so in her story “RT IF You’re 🙁 About Someone Dying.”

“Is it somehow more tasteful, even nobler, to keep grief private? Social media may make it easier to launch a stream of frown-y faces into the ether, but Mark Zuckerberg didn’t invent the impulse to reach out when you’re hurting,” Waldman said.

There may be some psychological reach out to other people in expressing grief, and some of these photos even show that. One photo on the “Selfies at Funerals” Tumblr blog shows of a boy with a picture of his grandma. The photo is captioned “Took a selfie with my gran at her funeral trying to imagine the face she’d pull if she was there! Love you!” The picture shows that his selfie is recalling memories. However, many of these selfies only illustrate how apathetic and standoffish humans can be. One selfie on the same blog, captioned “Love my hair today. Hate why I’m dressed up #funeral,” paints the portrait of a young woman dressed in black.

So wherever one may be, they may find that selfies are being taken. If the common fad can’t be broken, then try and disrupt the often shabby practice by following online Complex magazine’s freelance writer Brenden Gallagher’s sarcastic advice in his story “The 15 Types of Selfies.”

“You have a lot of options when showing the world how funny you are. You can stage a selfie with your child, your pet, or your grandmother. You can simply throw on a funny t-shirt. If you also want to show the world how smart you are, you can create some sort of socio-political commentary with your selfie. Whatever you do, make sure you put your efforts towards doing dumb stuff on the Internet rather than writing a thoughtful essay or creating art. Forget writing the great American novel, it’s high time you focused on taking the Great American Selfie,” Gallagher said.

Selfies will be taken as they have become an integrated part of society, but try making them tasteful or memorable. Those photos taken now can be great fun and even reminisced upon later, but make sure any photos taken are acceptable. With all of the photo apps nowadays, it’s easy to have private pictures show up in unwanted places.

“When you send a Snapchat you know there’s a possibility that it can get screenshot. I don’t really get mad if my Snapchat gets screenshot because I know that it can be,” Vickery said.

So as selfies work their way into the framework of everyday life, enjoy taking safe and fun pictures to remember later.