I was recently snapped at the Natural History Museum staring at a girl taking pictures of herself in front of a dinosaur skeleton. She was around 20-24 years old and the skeleton was around 150 million years old. Also staring was myself.
I was there just observing like a ninja taking in the essence of whatever it was we were experiencing. So this girl is not taking selfies in front of a dinosaur skeleton all by herself. She proceeded to take 17 pictures in different positions.
For each position, similar to the toddler next to me who was unsuccessfully trying to use his new phone, she stroked her own ego. My guess is since these pictures were taken from her phone camera and not an actual camera these girls got pretty much got just herself back. The lighting must have been decent because I could clearly see myself in her selfies.
Understandable because this does happen every once in awhile but for some reason this time it really got to me. She wasn’t crazy, ok? She has become crazier because we live in a society where plain out narcissism has become acceptable.
It’s contagious. Everywhere you go you see people posing as if they’re at a fashion show when they’re simply just waiting in public places. For whatever reason every moment can not go undocumented anymore.
Even the most introspective Diary keeper during the Victorian era wouldn’t be able to keep up with society these days. Earlier last week I tried to enjoy a cup of coffee at a local café that was literally constructed for Instagram with their exposed brick wall screaming at me “ take a picture of me!”. I then watched a creatively challenged couple pose for what felt like an hour on the wall’s many angles in crop tops as if they were a couple in a theatre who were deeply obsessed with the play.
Since I was sitting directly on the wall as they were, I got the pleasure of viewing many of the pictures they actually took. Don’t get me wrong they did take numerous shots of them doing one pose, and honestly with all my heart I believe they lost their minds taking these pictures. Not to be that guy but there is something satanic about this whole act.
I was about to lose my sanity as my breakfast got cold. Mind you I leaned in toward the poor barista working the counter just to silently salute him with a look of exhausted empathy and desperate solidarity. Scrolling through angles and vacation sites like she hasn’t done these “ selfie tours” before.
What I enjoy most about traveling is seeing things I’ve never seen before and relaxing to the results of centuries past that created these majestic sites. Good times. Thinking about how selfish our society has become I don’t need to hop into a DeLorean to understand a civilization run by taking picture kisses.
“ What’s up today? ‘Shoot me doing a selfie while on vacation!’ would have to be at the top of my list. Let’s not even talk about adding captions like “Living my best life at the Eiffel Tower” because that just seals the deal.
Instead of asking yourself “how does the architecture of the Eiffel Tower look?” we’ve now become people who ask, “ how would I look in a bikini next to the Eiffel Tower?”
When I used to have 20 to 24 chances to screw up a photo on a roll of film I took my time and appreciated every second and questioned every click. What I’m trying to say is when you need to be stealthy ditch the SLR for your phone. You owe it back to those life moments by not being someone who needs a phone case that extends from your hands down to your feet.
Bottomless phone pouches are by far my least favorite modern invention. They have the ability to take a kind hearted citizen that has a few screws loose and turn them into a heartlessly rude species of human. Case selfie sticks.
I was looking at a painting in The MET when suddenly this girl had to step in andPhotoshop herself into her own photo right next to Monet’s water lilies. The plastic extension of her selfie stick almost popped me in my eye. Literally if anything with the width of a ruler manned of a skateboard was flying toward me I would’ve got injured.
In my humility I questioned if her arms were simply长城奥特莱斯城市滑板车止.” Preservation of art.” She responded while striking a pose she just did before continuing to take pictures. Of herself. We can not allow ourselves to go that far in the name of ‘preserving art.’ Who’s to say she didn’t immediately delete this picture from her phone and send it to a collection of relatives you’ll never see?
And if they decide to overlook this precious selfie like their neighbors unwanted Christmas lights, what a felony to mankind we are committing. For clarification—I’m not saying I’m against pictures. I have a camera as well.
I like to ask strangers to take me pictures by handing them my camera. What confuses me is how many people feel the need to capture not only their lives as it happens but everyone around them. There was this one guy who felt the need to film the whole concert on his phone.
Ideally he should have been listening to the concert like everyone else was. Surrounded by people shooting him dirty looks and vigorously gesturing for him to join the real world. But alas he was no where near living in the moment like your run of the mill person sitting in the worst seat in the concert would.
Let alone pay attention to the concert like everyone else was. I could’ve flipped between watching him and his phone and not felt any difference because at this point in the concert, he proved to me he did not care about hearing a single thing. This perplexing problem is terrifying, yet fascinating and makes me question what’s fueling it all….
Pride? Is it caused by an existential fear of being erased from this world? Our generation has made humans feel as though they need a reason to feel validated even if it’s just to show they were here.
We edit our lives through social media and live as if we’ve lived our best life. That’s why we all feel famous at your ripe old age of being anonymous. Fame.
Is what I’m trying to explain to her. Since the second I could pronounce this word I have been unable to people watch. Celebrities are everywhere.
It used to be way easier to distinguish who was famous and who simply wasn’t. I believe that’s because nowadays anything is accessible to anyone. What’s terrifying about the selfie culture is not that it’s taking over our scenic museums and worldly monuments.
It’s what people are missing while they’re taking them self too seriously. Last summer at the Grand Canyon I was witness to a group of teenage girls attempting to take the perfect jump picture with the canyon behind them as they hang elegantly in mid air. What they ended up doing was sucking all the oxygen out of that canyon with their camera pointed right into mother nature’s abyss.
Instead of a Grand Canyon they’ve created a glorified hole. Floating above a spectacle carved from thousands of years of unpaid work while grabbing selfies at the canyon is what we’ve come to…. as a species that others perfected centuries before us.
I believe we all have ridiculous qualities about us that are made just for our odd generation. My dad couldn’t understand why you would pay for water in a bottle when there’s water right next to it thats just as good. My grandparent’s couldn’t comprehend why everyone was staring at a box of shining lights.
Maybe one day we’ll discover a thing so idiotic it’ll replace our selfie obsession. I have no idea what my conclusion is. You can’t be too sure about anything until it’s nearly extinct.
But if that’s not the case my theory is just a hint of what’s really going on. A generation so distracted by how they appear to others that we’ve lost the art of being present. Not at anyone’s wedding without thinking of how you can capture and portray that moment for the Instagramagram.
Yesterday I saw two older adults sitting in the park looking at each other. They sat next to each other on a bench stuck together like glue being goofy while feeding birds. Not one phone in sight.
If they were recording their memory in any capacity these two would’ve went completely unnoticed. To me they looked happy. And that’s how I wanted to feel today sharing the same world as them.
That old couple was out of their time! And that my friends is the scary thing about selfie culture. It’s not that it’s rude or obnoxiously stupid sometimes.
Its that we forget by trying to capture everything we aren’t living for the moments that truly matter. Excuse me while I go down the street to this coffee shop that swore by their lighting you’d look ten years younger.
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