This photo, posted on ABC Online, is the world's first known 'selfie'

This photo of a busted lip is the world's first known 'selfie', posted to an ABC Online forum more than a decade ago.

Self-portraits are about as old as cameras themselves, but when Oxford Dictionaries named "selfie" 2013's word of the year today, it said the earliest usage of the term - "so far anyway" - was in an ABC Online science forum posting.

The September 13, 2002, forum post was written by a user dubbed 'Hopey' and said:

"Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer [sic] and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps.

"I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie."

Hopey had started the forum thread seeking advice about whether licking his lips would make his stitches dissolve too soon. He went on to offer:

"Anyone wanna see a picture of it? It's pretty cool."

Hopey then posted a link to an image that was uploaded on the servers of the University of New England in Armidale.

The link is now dead - but the ABC was able to recover the photo via the wonders of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

One thing is for sure: if this is the first selfie, it was not posted with the goal of garnering 'likes'.

Are you Hopey? Or do you know him? Get in contact.