<P> Homemade selfie sticks could date back as early as 1925 . A photo from that year shows a man taking a photograph of himself and his wife, with the aid of a long pole which is pointed towards the camera and out of frame . Amateur box cameras of the period would not have been able to capture a self - portrait in focus when held at arm's length, requiring photographers to use remote shutter devices such as cables or sticks . </P> <P> A device which has been likened to the selfie stick appears in the 1969 Czechoslovak sci - fi film I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen . One character holds a silver stick in front of herself and another character, smiles at the end of the stick as it produces a camera flash, and immediately unfurls a printed photograph of the pair from the stick's handle . </P> <P> The 1983 "Minolta Disc - 7" camera had a convex mirror on its front to allow the composition of self - portraits, and its packaging showed the camera mounted on a stick while used for such a 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 of "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 . </P> <P> Canadian inventor Wayne Fromm patented his Quik Pod in 2005 and becoming commercially available in the United States the following year . In 2012, Yeong - Ming Wang filed a patent for a "multi-axis omni - directional shooting extender" capable of holding a smartphone, which won a silver medal at the 2013 Concours Lepine . The term "selfie stick" did not become widely used until 2014 . Extended forms of selfie sticks can hold laptop computers to take selfies from a webcam . By the fall of 2015 technology news noted that there was a large variety of selfie sticks available on the market; Molly McCugh of Wired magazine wrote 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 ." </P>

Who invented the selfie stick what purpose does it serve