David Ortiz and the dawn of the meta

In the beginning, there were selfies. And they trended. But then Ellen said, let Me gather Meryl and Angie and Brad and Julia, and take a selfie that will break Twitter.

And the Professional Photographers saw a photo op, and they said, let Us take a picture of this selfie-groupie in progress. And it was a step-back shot that showed Bradley with His arm extended taking the selfie with Ellen's white phone, and the Beautiful People of the Earth squeezing in.

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And the meta-selfie was Created.

And on the first day of April, the Red Sox went to the White House, and David Ortiz said, let Me take a selfie with President Obama, and again the Professional Photographers said, let Us take a picture of You taking a picture, and newspaper Editors said, let Us run the staff photo on Page One.

And all over Brooklyn, and in parts of Somerville, gentleman chicken farmers raced to be the first to curate a pop-up exhibit of selfies 2.0. And they fantasized about docents who would roam the gallery space and snap photos of patrons who were taking selfies of themselves looking at meta-selfies.

And although they didn't outwardly complain, the Oxford Dictionaries editors must have been thinking, wasn't it just in November that We named 'selfie' the international Word of the Year, and already they're passé?

But there were marketing opportunities to be exploited, by Samsung and others, and it was good.

Beth Teitell can be reached at beth.teitell@gmail.com