Tourism Canada’s Buzzfeed list of selfies doesn’t contain any selfies

That’s not a selfie, Canada. That’s barely even #DigitalDiplomacy.

Tourism Canada is currently running a campaign to have Canadians take “selfie” photographs in beautiful locations, and they are promoting their efforts by posting branded content on Buzzfeed.

The only problem? None of the photos are selfies.

The post, which is clearly marked as branded content provided by Tourism Canada, purports to contain a list of selfies snapped in beautiful parts of the country.

"The problem with selfies is that unless you’re doing something amazing, they’re pretty lame," the post reads before providing a list of 19 spectacular images.

None of which are selfies.

If we’ve lost you with all this selfie talk, permit me to explain.

"Selfie" is a now-shark-jumped term coined about a decade ago, which refers to a photograph snapped of oneself… by oneself. Selfies exploded in popularity around the time cellphones started taking decent photographs.

According to Yahoo Tech, photographer Jim Krause defined it in his 2005 instructional book, Photo Idea Index.

“A selfie is one of those images that is taken by aiming the camera at yourself,” he wrote. “The guesswork that goes into taking selfies often results in serendipitous photographic surprises.”

Thanks to social media, and the general joy one gets from overusing (and misusing) hip-seeming buzzwords, the term has since inappropriately spread to refer to any photo about anything.

On his HBO comedy news show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Oliver runs an occasional segment in which he outs people, usually media folk, who misuse the term.

Tourism Canada should refer to that segment. Because despite their “Selfie Swap" campaign, they don’t seem to know what a selfie is.

Of the 19 notes on Tourism Canada’s Buzzfeed selfie list:

• 3 are photos of people posing for a photo

• 2 are photos of someone taking a photo

• 3 are photos of someone with their backs to the camera, or not paying attention (i.e.: skiing)

• 11 are photos of nature or other scenery

• and 1 of those nature non-selfies also contains a video. Which is not a video selfie.

Tourism Canada: That’s not a selfie! That’s a video of playful whales!

Now, in Tourism Canada’s defence, their branded post never promises to contain 19 majestic Canadian selfies. But that is clearly the inference. And considering they are spending tax dollars to advertise on a popular American website in order to promote a project where they ask Canadians and visitors to Canada to share majestic selfies – you’d expect some selfie self-awareness.

This all follows last week’s much-mocked unveiling of Canada’s official Twitter account, which played up one of Canada’s most overplayed international stereotypes by end its first post with, “eh!”

As far as #DigitalDiplomacy goes, I much prefer Canada posting a gallery of stunning photographs to a popular U.S. website.

But none of them are selfies.