• Home
• /
• Opinion

Some selfies are in poor taste

People today take selfies at funerals, in hospitals, in front of fires, while people are drowning, during air attacks, at sites of mass destruction.

Strange as it may sound, selfies are an age-old phenomenon. It's another matter that once upon a time they were called self-portraits. And back then, a century and more ago, you needed timers and mirrors and props, along with some planning, to execute a half-decent selfie. It took some effort, and therefore restricted the human stupidity factor.
All that has now changed. Camera phones have eliminated the need to 'plan' a selfie. At the most, you now brandish a selfie stick, pull a pout, a grin, and that fake fleeting facial contortion is immortalized. It takes a mere five seconds to make a contribution to the countless images already floating virtually in the world wide scrap yard.
Human tendencies, however, may or may not have kept pace with the rapid pace of digital and photo evolution. The front facing cameras has transformed, for one, tourist spots into indulgent narcissistic islands. Everywhere you look, you see vanity being caught on camera, uploaded on social media, a mass of people seeking validation and praise from people they wouldn't invite home but call friends.
People today take selfies at funerals, in hospitals, in front of fires, while people are drowning, during air attacks, at sites of mass destruction; selfie for an idea of the extent of human callousness.
When did we become a people with such little care for decency, courtesy, permission, and manners? It shouldn't take people being arrested during the fire at a hotel fire in Dubai on New Years Eve for the message to hit home that some selfies are in poor taste, and just plain unacceptable.