It's subtle but cool

The "ussie" vs. the "selfie"

My latest watch-it-on-an-endless-loop show is “Ted Lasso,” which, as always happens with me and popular television shows, I missed on its first go-round. Other shows I’ve watched to the end and then started again include, but are not limited to, “Friends,” “West Wing,” “Night Court,” and “Newhart,” the one where he’s an innkeeper.

Don’t look for a pattern there, but each of these shows have played in the background as I write (I canNOT write in a quiet room and I blame newsrooms) and they’ve put me to sleep at night.

There’s a lot to like about “Ted Lasso” (with a fourth season coming soon!) and if you haven’t watched it on Apple TV, I recommend it.

Here’s one small thing that caught in my net, among the great soccer shots and funny characters and such. Three or four times throughout the three seasons of the show, a curly-headed young man (Tommy, played by a gloriously energetic Bill Skinner) shows up and asks for an “ussie” with one or more of the main characters.

I wasn’t sure what I was hearing when he said “ussie,” so I looked it up.

In the beginning, God created the (sorry, habit) self-portraits that included other people were called “ussies” by more than just Tommy-in-a-television-show. And then — at least in the U.S. — people pared that back to “selfie,” as in “Let’s take a selfie,” even if there are other people in the frame.

The whole idea of a selfie makes me sad. I don’t tend to shoot them because 1) I already know what I look like and 2) if I’m somewhere gorgeous, I’ll take a photo of that, sans me, though I don’t take a lot of photos of places, either, as I don’t usually need the reminder.

A few years back, we went to Florence (she said, working one of her favorite vacations into the conversation) and in front of a gorgeous church I watched a gorgeous young woman pose looking up at her selfie-stick. Respectful of the importance of this moment, the other tourists gave her wide berth, and it struck me that she was in front of this church, posing, so that she could — I assume — post a photo about her fabulous vacation to her friends and followers online. I don’t know if she took the vacation alone but she was certainly alone in these photos. She did the duck-lips thing and cocked her head this way and that. In a crowd of tourists with shiny faces, she got her shot, folded up the stick, and walked on to the next beautiful building, I suppose. And yes, I know I’m assuming a lot. Between traveling alone and not-traveling, I’d certainly recommend traveling alone.

But the idea of an “ussie” sounds — and is — friendlier, all awkward overhead crooked arm and all. An ussie says there’s someone in this with you, and it sweetly broadens the idea of self.

I don’t know. Maybe this makes sense after you’ve watched the show.