Selfie-sticks are for the self-indulgent
Matt Rooney
mrooney3@uwyo.edu
Things I think selfie-sticks should be used for: 1.) Mega back-scratcher; 2.) Reaching cookies on the top shelf; 3.) Lightsaber battles and; 4.) Fending off perverts. One thing they should not be used for is attaching your phone to and then taking more pictures of your big dumb face.
Which is basically the whole reason selfie-sticks exist. So people can extend their phones to heights unreachable to the modern man and snap a photo that says, “look at how interesting this position this time and space I’m in is, which therefore makes me equally interesting!” False, you are not interesting, and pretending you have a robotic arm is not helping.
But that point is beyond the thinking mind of anyone who actually owns a selfie-stick. They probably thought, “hey I can use this to take neat pictures of me and all the cool things I’m doing at different angles. That’ll show the world who I am!” But a piece of advice to those folks: Nobody cares. Truly, nobody cares.
They don’t care about your dumb food, your dumb babies just being dumb babies and especially your dumb face making a dumber face. The human body in picture form is a gross slab of meat riddled with shame. Why the hell would you think its okay to bombard people with constant pictures of that, let alone from a different angle? Baby pictures are not more relevant to my life from 4 feet higher in the air.
And the funny thing is I think the people behind Snapchat—a.k.a the harbingers of evil that popularized selfies—agree with me. They thought, “Why is my Facebook forever tainted with pictures of people I hate? I know, let’s create an app that satisfies the craving for self-gratification but then immediately sends it to the garbage.”
Hence with Snapchat you have a max of ten seconds to show off whatever you unjustly feel needs showing off and then it disappears forever, as things that don’t matter should.
That applies not just to photos of dumb people, but to any attempts at “art” as well.
I’m sure people with sticks are trying to go around and get cool landscape pictures and what not, as if it hadn’t been possible before this amazing invention. Trust me, your photo still looks ugly no matter what little accessories you add to it.
If I’m trying to make any point its selfie-sticks are as pointless as the photos being taken with them. They are an attempt to accessorize self-centered, social media behavior. Sticks don’t make you or your photos more interesting. In fact, like a picture of the Taj Mahal zoomed out to reveal the ocean of garbage that really surrounds it, the added distance a stick gives you actually makes you look worse.
I <3 selfies and selfie-sticks
Spencer Hu
shu2@uwyo.edu
If you are friends with me on Snapchat, you likely have undoubtedly witnessed my unabashed love for my selfie stick and if you aren’t friends with me, then shout out atcha boi, at spencersaidhey. My interaction with the selfie stick has been enlightening. If you had asked me about them a week ago, it is very likely I would have told you they were terrible and anyone who had one should reconsider their decision and then… I was given one. I was hooked and every opportunity I saw to use it, I took. Every time I have, someone chimes in about how obnoxious I am being (which I concede to) and how vain I am for having a selfie stick at all. As an aside, if you are exhibiting dangerous behavior in pursuit of taking “cool selfies,” please stop. Apparently more people die from taking selfies every year than they do in shark attacks, although the death rate for both are pretty low.
Look, I like selfie sticks. I think the fact that they exist is very entertaining- hilarious even. Reading the opposing opinion might be confusing since, I don’t actually support selfie sticks 100 percent. I can understand why someone who uses one would be seen as obnoxious, self-absorbed and narcissistic. When I use it, it is in pursuit of the people around me perceiving me as the things mentioned.
In any of the snaps I’ve made with the selfie stick, the selfie stick is the subject. The narcissism, the self-indulgent obnoxiousness, is the intent. I’m sure most people realize the absurdity of the existence of a tool that was created to extend the options one had to taking photos of them and I do too. However, that is kind of the point. No one I’ve known who uses a selfie stick fails to understand the silly and playful nature of using one. It’s this same attitude that keeps people taking the “I’m keeping the leaning tower from falling over” photos.
As I’ve come to understand it, there is a particular way we should think about selfie sticks. People who use selfie sticks and takes it too seriously miss the point, people who scowl and get angry at the sight of one, also miss the point. Sometimes things are just supposed to be fun and not enjoying those things is really a self-imposed disservice. I think there are a lot of things that fit in this niche of, “taking it seriously misses the point, and not participating misses the point.”
Maybe this widespread attitude of wanting to always be the cynical straight man is more harmful than it is constructive. I also want to emphasize that being cynical and being critical are two very different things. We should absolutely be critical of ourselves and our environment and what we should do in pursuit of improving everything, but if something is trivial and just concerned with fun, maybe being a little more lax and permissive isn’t such a bad thing.
