La 'selfie'

[fglorca]

LOS ‘SELFIES’ Y LAS POSIBLES SECUELAS MENTALES
Is the article 'los', used with the word 'selfies', incorrect here? Should it be 'las', as it refers to 'una foto'?

In the same text, the writer uses, 'la' with 'selfie':

“Prestar demasiada atención a las fotografías publicadas, controlando quién las mira o a quién le agrada o quién comenta, con la esperanza de lograr la mayor cantidad posible de ‘me gusta’ es un síntoma de que las ‘selfies’ están causando un problema”, declara la especialista Panpimol Wipulakorn, del departamento tailandés para la salud mental.

[Rusty]

el selfie
los selfies

Since most neologismos enter into Spanish with a masculine gender, it shouldn't be any surprise that this word is considered masculine ...

la selfie
las selfies

But wait, it seems that both genders may be used according to this article.

Two Spanish words that mean the same thing are un autorretrato and una autofoto.

Maybe that is why no one can pin the word down to only one gender.

The article also mentions the Spanish word selfi, without the final 'e'. This, it claims, is not an anglicismo. This word also sports a dual gender.
The plural is selfis.

Interesting.

[wrholt]

While I suspect that Rusty is right to state that most neologismos enter Spanish with masculine gender, it actually is not that uncommon for such words to enter Spanish with ambiguous or undecided gender and to remain that way for some time.

I have a hypothesis that this is more likely to occur when (a) the form of the word does not have a strong association with one gender over the other, and/or (b) two or more equally-likely native synonyms have different genders. However, I do not know of any studies examine this question.