14 DAY TRIAL // Every year, it feels like Google has a special budget for April Fools’ Day alone, since the jokes just keep on coming. Although they’ll never admit to it, they’re probably having office competitions on who can come up with the funniest jokes.
Today, as Gmail celebrates 10 years since it was launched (this part is true), the company is introducing the Gmail Shelfie.
“When custom themes launched back in 2012, we urged you to find ‘your perfect image and make Gmail your own.’ And you did. Many of you rushed to take photos of yourselves to upload as your Gmail custom theme, which you started referring to as selfies,” Google’s Greg Bullock writes in a blog post, effectively taking “the blame” for inventing the selfie.
Not only has the phenomenon grown and spread, but the word “selfie” even made it into the dictionary and (sadly) became the Word of the Year in 2013.
“You all love setting selfies as your custom theme in Gmail, but you’ve told us there’s one major problem: there isn’t a way to share your selfie with others. As the pioneering platform for selfies, Gmail is committed to being at the forefront of innovation in the selfie space. And we think it's a tragedy that your handsome hair, luscious lashes and beautiful brows have been trapped in your own inbox. Until now, that is. Today, we’re proud to free your selfies by launching Gmail Shelfie, the SHareable sELFIE,” the blog post continues.
Basically, the company jokes, the Shelfie is built on the idea that you shouldn’t “be selfish with your selfie” and you should share it with anyone you’re close to.
To back up its Shelfie claim, you can actually check this out on your own Gmail account. Among the many themes that Gmail makes available for you, users can pick to change theirs to “Trending Shelfies.” You can, of course, make your own, but Google already provides a bunch of them so for the sake of the joke, why not have fun with those instead.
Depending on how lucky you are, you may get Katy Perry and one of her cats hugging it out, or a random dude with a nice beach view in the back (like I did). You can find out who that person is by checking out the trending themes on Google+, along with additional information about the picture.
[UPDATE] Since some of you have asked, it's quite easy to change back from the “Shelfie” theme. Click the gear button on the top right corner, and pick the “Settings” option. In the top part there are several areas where you can make changes for your Gmail account, but you should pick the last one - Themes. From there, you can pick whatever theme you had before the Shelfie madness.