The Great Selfie-Stick Ban Of 2015 Has Commenced

from the me-me-me dept

Selfies: they're a thing now. Seriously, imagine yourself going back ten years in time and attempting to explain to a thirty-year-old professional that within a decade there would be a term in common usage for snapping off mini-monuments to narcissism with something called a smart-phone. Once that person was done trying to decipher what the hell you just said, he or she would likely dismiss it all completely and get to the business of asking how all the flying cars were working out for everyone. And that, dear friends, is exactly when you'd hit him with your selfie stick and really blow his mind.

Ah, yes, the selfie stick. It had to happen, of course, but if you don't know what a selfie stick is, it's a stick that you plant your phone on so that you can take an even better selfie. Science, is there nothing you cannot do?

If you extend it a tad further maybe the photo won't show how dead we are inside...

In the interest of full disclosure, I own one of these wonder-wands because how could I possibly not? I'm not good at much in this crazy, mixed-up world, but I am great at narcissism. So, you can imagine my extreme, self-aggrandizing displeasure to learn that the great selfie stick ban of 2015 has apparently commenced with a whole list of public venues where I can't bring my second favorite extendable twig.

The telescoping arms, meant to widen the angle, enabling selfie takers to incorporate landscapes and friends in their shots, have been deemed ‘hazardous’ at a growing number of museums, monuments and concert venues.

There is only one problem: selfie sticks take great, compelling photos. As obnoxious as the arms can be, we are going to miss these impossibly awesome shots. We are particularly aghast at the ban by art museums, whose purpose is to celebrate freedom of artistic expression.

The list of venues where the selfie stick has been banned includes, but is not limited to, the Palace of Versailles, The Smithsonian, most New York museums, the Colosseum, all the soccer stadiums of Brazil, and the Art Institute of my beloved hometown of Chicago.

Yes, we have a giant metal bean next to which homeless hungry people sleep. Chicago, folks...

Perhaps the most baffling venues on the list are the music venues, such as Wembley in the UK. The argument made for banning selfie sticks at concerts might sound good, until you think about it for two seconds.

"Selfies are a big part of the gig experience," a spokesperson for the Wembley SSE Arena told NME. "The sticks might mean you are refused entry to the venue so our advice is don’t bring them and stick with the tried and tested use of an arm."

If you actually break down this argument and test whether it's good theory or not, and for some reason I'm going to do exactly that, the whole premise becomes immediately silly. Picture yourself at a concert some rows back from the stage. Now picture the jackass in front of you who refused to pass that joint back now turns around and sticks his phone-on-a-stick into the air and takes a quick selfie. Annoying, right? But now picture him doing all those same things, except he sticks his big fat arm up instead. An arm, mind you, that is several times the width of a selfie stick and one which can probably only extend far enough to get his phone directly in your line of sight, as opposed to a selfie stick which extends up further. That's way more annoying, isn't it?

Look, the selfie stick is a silly but wonderful little tool of narcissism and public venues that operate on any premise of learning or expression really shouldn't be banning them. Free the selfie stick! Attica!

Filed Under: bans, photographs, selfie sticks, selfies