Are selfie sticks tacky ?

[Balefont]

I don't think people hated selfies until they were so-called. Why so much anger, guys?

Because they used to be rare and now that are ALL THE TIME.

[kiko]

So, selfie sticks have nothing to do with creepy PMs during NHAW?

[Larry of the Lawn]

I learned in Zoolander that everytime a picture is taken of you, you lose a part of your soul. So selfies are like any other vice-- drugs, smoking, hang gliding, knitting-- fun, but inherently self-destructive and a hazard of a wild youth.

[Theda Baratheon]

I don't think I ever hang out with people who just ignore actual conversation and flip out their phone and take a picture. Mine are always in my own room. I really don't think it's a common thing for people to just ignore actual people around them and take a picture of their face....like, all the selfies I see are obviously taken in someones room/bathroom.

[Balefont]

I want to add that it's not necessarily "selfies" that make me want to keep scrolling because I am friended with someone from high school who gets her kids to take her pictures that she constantly uploads to FB. It's the "look at me! look at me!" crowd that I just can't even.

Theda, I actually like your pictures becuase you are expressing yourself through an art and I don't find you to be attention whoring.

And sharing a pic of one's self from time to time is okay to me.

But the bottom line here is, everyone should do what they want and shrug off the judging, if any, as they see fit. Me, my personality has always had a aversion to show-offs and look at me! look at me! and this is why I just have to keep scrolling. It's not you, it's me. < shrug >

[Theda Baratheon]

I wouldn't say calling someone vain for looking at their own face all the time is ''pseudo-intellectual'' or ''psychoanalysis'', it's just an observation.

A selfie takes like...two seconds to take each time. That isn't someone "looking at their face all the time"

I have to say, I kind of expected a ''Fuck off, it's my life'' reaction to this.

cool

But I'm pretty sure commenting on selfies on an internet forum doesn't classify as interfering in other people's life - I'm allowed to have a negative opinion of people taking selfies, and this is a place for expressing that opinion.

ummm pretty sure I didn't quote your post and tell you "do not think or say these things" i just think vehement contempt for selfies is just wasted emotion. Their not that big of a deal.

As for when it does affect my life, I think you're twisting what I said (assuming this post is in response to me) - my problem is when selfies cover my News Feed, which is very different to just scrolling past the odd one or two.

fair enough

Not to mention that it's rude to be talking face to face to someone and have them not listen to you because...they're taking another picture of their face.

Ok that has like...never happened to me once ever.

But in fairness, just as your relationship with selfies isn't the same as that of the majority, neither is mine. Maybe I'm unusually inundated with people who take inordinate amounts of selfies - literally thousands.

Yeah, maybe. Just doesnt sound like my experience of selfies whatsoever and im pretty sure youre also a brit around my age???? weird.

[Theda Baratheon]

I want to add that it's not necessarily "selfies" that make me want to keep scrolling because I am friended with someone from high school who gets her kids to take her pictures that she constantly uploads to FB. It's the "look at me! look at me!" crowd that I just can't even.

Theda, I actually like your pictures becuase you are expressing yourself through an art and I don't find you to be attention whoring.

And sharing a pic of one's self from time to time is okay to me.

But the bottom line here is, everyone should do what they want and shrug off the judging, if any, as they see fit. Me, my personality has always had a aversion to show-offs and look at me! look at me! and this is why I just have to keep scrolling. It's not you, it's me. < shrug >

Yeah, I can totally understand that i guess. I am probably just not friends with many of the attention whoring crowd luckily enough lol. All the selfies i see are by gothy people around my age doing similar things to me.

And thanks :D

[Disturber of Peace]

So when you take a photo of yourself, what exactly is the turning point after which you muster strenght to go on?

1. The fact that you liked your photo

2. The fact that you had you had a picture you thought was worth showing and had the nerve to upload it

3. The fact that others liked or commented positively

[Chaldanya]

I'm really not of the selfie generation but I don't have a problem with them at all. I will also note that from my experience selfies seems to be taken by women the majority of time and it just seems like another way to have a go at the shallowness of women as a whole, but I'm sure that's not what is happening here...

i will further note that there are a lot of people that post their WoD and don't get near the amount of scorn when one imagines they are doing it for similar reasons - make themselves feel better/accomplished or validation etc.

N

[DJDonegal]

Happens to me all the time. I've had a conversation with 3 other people where they all descended into silence as selfies were taken.

Sounds to me like you have some pretty rude friends/acquaintances.

My experience of selfies is as a group activity on a night out. How many can we get in the picture? Pull some silly faces! So that's when Dave went missing... For me it's just an evolution of photo-taking on a night out whereby everyone now crams into the picture, instead of one person being left out because they're taking the thing.

[Theda Baratheon]

Sounds to me like you have some pretty rude friends/acquaintances.

My experience of selfies is as a group activity on a night out. How many can we get in the picture? Pull some silly faces! So that's when Dave went missing... For me it's just an evolution of photo-taking on a night out whereby everyone now crams into the picture, instead of one person being left out because they're taking the thing.

Yeah same. Its either the silly but fun group photo or taking picture in bedroom.

[Castel]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with Theda here. While I don't necessarily believe that there isn't a difference (whether good or bad) between how people respond to each other in the past and social media it seems that a ton of the haters are not actually breaking free of the so-called narcissistic mold but are simply preening in their own way. "Look how aware I am about our narcissistic culture!"

[Inigima]

I'm not much for selfies in general, but I don't really care about them. I do occasionally raise an eyebrow about the appropriateness of some edge cases, like that infamous one at a funeral.

They always seemed kind of spontaneous, though, and the widespread introduction of selfie STICKS reads to me like older, out-of-touch people co-opting and ruining the trend. If you're at the point of buying and carrying an extra piece of equipment it's no longer spontaneous and you care way more about them than you "ought" to.

tl;dr selfies were fine but are rapidly becoming painfully uncool as an older generation fails utterly to understand them

Edit: I hold this opinion in my capacity as arbiter of taste for people who are increasingly younger than me even as I transition into being an old fart myself

[Spockydog]

I'm not much for selfies in general, but I don't really care about them. I do occasionally raise an eyebrow about the appropriateness of some edge cases, like that infamous one at a funeral.

They always seemed kind of spontaneous, though, and the widespread introduction of selfie STICKS reads to me like older, out-of-touch people co-opting and ruining the trend. If you're at the point of buying and carrying an extra piece of equipment it's no longer spontaneous and you care way more about them than you "ought" to.

tl;dr selfies were fine but are rapidly becoming painfully uncool as an older generation fails utterly to understand them

Edit: I hold this opinion in my capacity as arbiter of taste for people who are increasingly younger than me even as I transition into being an old fart myself

The first time I saw a selfie-stick in action, it was attached to the arm of a sixteen-year-old Japanese kid in front of St Paul's Cathedral.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Then there's the selfie's joker of a cousin - the photo bomb.

[brook]

Meh

Sometimes I AM vain, Sometimes I love my outfit, or my hair, or just the way I'm looking on a particular day and I take a photo and feel good about myself. Anyone who doesn't like it is free to block me.

Besides when I was a teen half of every roll of film was still us attempting to take photos of ourselves, the only difference now is that we all take more photos full stop and the selfie attempts actually result in decent photos.

[DJDonegal]

Besides when I was a teen half of every roll of film was still us attempting to take photos of ourselves, the only difference now is that we all take more photos full stop and the selfie attempts actually result in decent photos.

Exactly why I see selfies as an evolution in photo-taking.

You just couldn't take reliable selfies before digital cameras took over.

[Roose Seal]

I will never understand this lame, pseudo-intellectual contempt for selfies. Get over it. The world and the internet is changing. Who gives a shit if someone is vain or their face pisses you off on your news feed for 2 seconds (strong reaction IMO) I honestly feel like a lot of people, even people around my age, get very crochety about this subject. I like putting on makeup and doing my hair and taking a nice selfie because I like seeing myself look nice and not the horrible thing I see in the mirror all the time; it's away from me but still me, I don't care if that's vain, whatever *shrugs* at least it helps me to see what others might see and not refuse to leave my house for days because I don't want anyone to look at how ugly I am (yes ive done that before)

I realise that might be a v specific reason that isnt the same for the majority who take selfies, but so what? Theyre taking them because theyre going out, they look nice and want people to say nice things to them? What is so horrifically bad with this? Theyre taking a silly ironic photo to make people smile? Again, whats so bad about this? Theyre being fun and trying to squeeze as many friends together in front of the front camera as possible? Whats so bad about this?

This.

At no point in my life am I going to look back and think "I wish I had less pictures of that moment".

I literally have zero photos of myself or my friends in highschool, save for class photos and I'm jealous of people in school right now taking photos of everything, who'll have thousands of photos to look at in a decade or more.

[DJDonegal]

Group selfies as part of a night out are something that I've been part of frequently. They work well there because you're the object of the picture in that scenario, whereas I think selfie sticks are designed for when you want a picture of yourself and something else in the background...you may as well just get someone else to take a photo then.

I understand your point, but most of the time I want to take a selfie of me and something in the background, I'm abroad and either

a ) The thing behind me is massive

b ) Not a lot of people around me speak my language (or, more accurately, I don't speak theirs)

I can see a place for selfie sticks; it's just that the place is not in a bar, or even your home in most cases. I don't have one, and can't see me getting one, but it serves a function.

It can't ever be as annoying as umbrellas, anyway.

[Elder Sister]

I don't personally take many selfies, but I enjoy seeing them from my FB friends. Many of these people I don't get to 'lay eyes' on but once a year, if ever. It's nice getting to see their faces. Makes me feel more a part of their lives, honestly.

Obviously, there are circumstances (like funerals) where they're in poor taste, and should be avoided, in my opinion. For some people, it's simply a mode of self-expression, and I'm fine with that.