Let’s officially rename these crazy things “narcissi-sticks.” I enjoy taking “us-ies” — using my biological “selfie-stick” (my very long arm) to take fun group shots. (And I love it when I can AirDrop them right away to the other people in the photo.) But watching people take selfies all over Europe — all day long, day after day — actually starts to seem a bit sad. What are your thoughts on the selfie epidemic?
Comments
Even worse than the selfie stick users are the groups of thuglike individuals selling those sticks on the street. Selfies are tasteless.
I could not agree with you more, Rick! This epidemic certainly takes away from the pure joy of seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre when most people are posing for selfies! We were on a recent trip in the British Isles and have never seen so many narcissistic people taking selfies at EVERY stop along EVERY tour! It is truly a bit sad as you said.
It is sad, and the number of people aggressively selling the selfie sticks is very frustrating. I almost wanted to buy one in Rome, just to wave at all the sellers. But never to use!
A month ago, I was in Europe for the first time in 48 years. Prague, in addition to all its much-commented splendors, struck me as the City of Segways and Selfie Sticks.
I’d rather ask someone “on the street” to take a photo. I’ve met some interesting folks that way, and they often appreciate my taking a photo of them.
Agree. The people typically using selfie sticks seem to have little or no regard for the personal spaces of the people around them, which is incredibly frustrating at crowded tourist spots, and nothing screams “vain” quite as loudly as someone using a selfie stick.
I despise these contraptions. Why on earth would someone feel it more important to always feature their mug in a photo instead of the beautiful scenery or backdrop around them is baffling to me.
Tourist sites should ban the damn things.
Jeff
Doppelganger
Actually, Jeff, Disneyland has banned them. Sadly they’re still all over Europe.
i wholeheartedly agree w/ Sue Anne Henneck!
people having photos taken of themselves & friends have been around since the late 1800s.
but, w/ those remote controlled sticks, they can stay to themselves and not interact w/ others, even to ask “take photo please?”
chance encounters like that can lead to interesting conversations and connections. i often ask folks struggling w/ arm’s length camera “would you like me to take the photo?” never had anyone turn me down.
i dont hate or despise selfie-sticks nor think that the people selling or using them are jerks/selfish/insertEpithetHere.
i just wish they would INTERACT WITH OTHERS!!!!!
what bugs me more is the angle of the photo is usually downward, meaning they wont be able see where they were, just themselves. lost moment.
In a place like this, you should be in the moment and enjoy what you are seeing. Pictures you take of the places and people are uniquely yours because you took them, not because your face is in every one. We have found that you can see and enjoy, or you can spend your time taking photos, but really not both. Incidentally, many public places are banning these sticks.
I call them ego-sticks – easier to say.
I despise them, they just increase the difficulty of actually seeing what you have come to see. And I totally fail to understand why a photo of anywhere is thought to be better with a person on it – especially when it is the same person, over and over again. Don’t these narcissists ever get tired of their own faces? Oh – narcissists – silly question – but how did we wind up with so many of them?
Far too many people selling them. And even more find it necessary to put their face in front of everything. Ban the darn things.
I think people care way too much about this topic, if you like selfie sticks, great, if you don’t, that’s ok too. (Now, people that lack common sense and smack you in the face with them in a crowded gallery are a different story).
Went to Venice last September. Selfie sticks everywhere, making crowded places seem even worse. Unless individual cities ban them and actually enforce the ban, I guess the rest of us are stuck maneuvering around people and their sticks. Super annoying, but I guess we have to live with them.
I find the selfie sticks to be annoying, and it is sad that so many people, mostly young people, choose to spend so much time using them. I did not see them to any degree in England in 2014 and was shocked to see them everywhere in Paris in 2015. I wish they were banned in the museums. Arm’s length “selfies” should be good enough.
and what do people intend to do with countless pics of themselves instead of the wonderous things and views they have had the privilege of being around?
On a related note, we are seeing young Japanese tourists hiking in the Alpe di Siusi while Skyping/using Facetime with friends who are, I suppose, back home. And they are not sitting having a conversation, they are hiking the trails, showing their friends the view and chatting. Looks like an accident waiting to happen and they are missing the point of being in these glorious surroundings.
I’m guilty of taking the occasional selfie but would never resort to using one of those annoying and omnipresent sticks. I also saw them – and the pushy sellers – everywhere in Europe in May. This trend is fueled by the prevalence of social media and the need to brag about where you are traveling. Hope it goes away soon and more locations banthese nuisances !
Somebody please invent a green screen app… let the “this is me standing in front of …” people have a selection of selfies they can automatically superimpose onto the scene before them. Take the shot, move on, let me have a moment to enjoy the view!
I heard this on a radio show to educate some folks who might not know what a photograph is:
A photo is a selfie without you in it .
You know, it’s kinda another way people are no longer talking to each other. Remember, you asked someone to take a picture and perhaps you don’t quite speak the same language and used pantomime, but you’re nice to each other. Then those are those people you met who were nice. It’s sad to think there will be less of that.
agreed while most use of the selfie stick reeks of self centeredness i have used it a few times… when your trying to get that nice family pic and you have little kids under 5 and trying to get them to all look in the same spot at the same time it can be a bridge too far to ask a passing person to take a few mins to get a good pic.
Have to agree with top comment–the selfie-takers are loathsome but at least stay out of your face (because they’re so obsessed with their own). The aggressive and relentless stick-purveyors, however, very nearly ruined our trip to Rome in spring of 2015, my first exposure to these horrid accessories.
This has inspired a lot of responses because they are ridiculous! And what I hate the most are the hockers sticking these in your face and trying to sell you one every two minutes!
Have to admit that I’ve just bought one of these! NO I don’t want to take loads of photos of myself (frankly I hate having my photo taken), but I go on vacation by myself, and last year in Germany I found that it was hard to take the odd photo of myself in interesting places (Neuschwanstein, top of the Reichstag etc, to share with Friends on Social Media, and simply act as a record that I was there, that I may look back upon. 95% of my holiday photos are of locations, plants, animals – so I’m just using the selfie stick to take better photos of myself now and again. Also find it hard to ask other people to do this – It’s different if you’re a couple.
“Recording the moment” has taken the place of ‘experiencing the present moment”…..Working with that #%#&& stick, getting the right angle for your face in front of the spectacular scenery, angling for a shot: It’s all taken the place of just being in the presence of one of the wonders of the world or….just a pleasant garden….It’s all about recording, nothing about experiencing….I have a suspicion that the thinking might be: if it’s not plastered all over Facebook, then…You really were not ‘there’….But the Selfie keeps you away from being there, as you fiddle and focus only on snapping a recording of what you should be quietly relishing…Tragic..Recording it, rather than responding to it, truly looking at something memorable and letting it touch one’s heart must be really frightening to lots of folks….
I can only hope they are a phase, like pet rocks, “baby on board”
signs, etc. and will disappear sooner rather than later.
Wen to Vatican Musum and there were people walking the entire route with a selfie stick in the air. They really should ban them from museums.
I think the whole “prove you were there” thing is rather sad. Take a few photos, but maybe of what you are seeing?
It is not only the narcissism, it is also the aggressiveness in which people pursue their “selfies”.
Art and scenery are meant to be “breathed in”. You shouldn’t be jostled while you embrace all that is beautiful in our world.
Suzanne (and all), don’t know whether your post was partially in response to mine or not (covered similar aspects anyway), but I for one do very much experience and respond to what I’m seeing and sensing – it’s why I go on holiday! Just because I may take a photo of myself in that situation using a tool that makes it easier to do so, doesn’t make me narcissistic. Mine has just arrived through the post, and I’ve just spent 5 minutes experimenting with it – believe me, with a face like mine, if I adjust myself for the photo, it’s just so I don’t cringe when I see it! I don’t think taking the occasional photo of oneself is wrong – I have a friend with MS who is always keen to see photos of my travels, and doubtless It’ll be interesting 20 years hence to look back and see 39 year old me as I was then. In front of the Matterhorn perhaps! Tacky you may say, and fair enough. But let’s not have knee-jerk reactions to useful pieces of technology. By all means direct your ire to those for who it never leaves their hand, but if we find it irritating to see selfie sticks used, ask ourselves why – does it really spoil your experience, or do we just loath in others what we fear in ourselves?
I made fun of the selfie crowd for years…the glamor girls all dressed up, posing themselves to look perfect…complete with cleavage suddenly appearing on formerly flat chested minis. Everyone is a model now or porn star good looking with these selfies and selfie sticks.
But suddenly, I found myself single and alone in every way. Then one day I found myself single, alone and happy. Then, single, alone, happy and traveling. Then I realized that if I didn’t photograph myself, years would go by and no one would have photographed me at all.
Today, I’m all for the travel selfie. I want to remember that I lived! I may never get the chance to ever be photographed with a giant statue of a boat ever again…although I hope one day to share it with folks I love (photographed with a giant boar).