Photobombing: History and Key Facts

Photobombing is the act of purposely putting oneself into the view of a photograph, often in order to play a practical joke on the photographer or the subjects. Photobombing has received significant coverage since 2009. In discussing a "stingray photobomb" picture that became popular, Andrea DenHoed suggests that the photobomb label "implies a narrative of surreptitious sabotage," although in the sense of unintended or initially unnoticed people in the background of spoiled photographs, photobombs have existed for much of the history of photography.

In 2014, "photobomb" was named Word of the Year by the Collins English Dictionary after several photos of celebrities photobombing at awards ceremonies had gone viral.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Photobombing by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.