Lorraine Courtney: Celebs right to revolt against selfie culture
HAVE overzealous fans finally gone too far in demanding photos with celebrities? And when is it not appropriate to ask a celeb for a selfie?
I’d have thought that if I took a straw poll of yea or nay that ‘while the person is being treated in hospital’ would probably come up as a no-no. I was wrong.
I get it. It’s tempting for fans to ignore propriety in these Instagram-or-it-didn’t-really-happen times. But apparently we’ve reached the low point where hospital staff think it’s OK to bother injured celebrities for selfies.
Yes, really. Ed Sheeran was reportedly asked to pose for selfies by staff treating his broken arm.
The singer needed treatment after he broke his right wrist and left elbow last October.
He was treated at Ipswich General Hospital, which has since started an inquiry into the treatment of high-profile patients.
The alleged A&E incident is up there with Harry Styles being asked to pose for a selfie at his grandmother’s funeral.
Has it all gone too far? Justin Bieber thinks so. He’s leading the charge on a Hollywood micro-trend: personal bans on taking photos with fans.
“If you happen to see me out somewhere, know that I’m not gonna take a picture. I’m done taking pictures,” Bieber wrote in an Instagram post a while back.
“It has gotten to the point that people won’t even say hi to me or recognise me as a human. I feel like a zoo animal, and I wanna be able to keep my sanity.”
Fame does require people to be ‘on’ regardless of whether they want to be, but a steady stream of selfie requests is taking that too far.
The celeb selfie has essentially replaced the task of getting an autograph from someone. Now that everyone has cameras on them at all times, it’s a more personal way of remembering an occasion when you met someone you admire, fine. But there has to be a line somewhere.
Everyone from the Pope to Obama and Ellen DeGeneres takes selfies. They are a part of our modern culture that we all engage in without any real thought, because, well, everybody else is.
I understand their rise; after all the self-portrait is one of the defining artistic subjects of human art, throughout the world.
I’m not sure I agree with the argument though that selfies are a great example of young people promoting themselves and taking control of their own self-presentation.
Selfies are a modern reflection of the horrible way society teaches us (and especially women) that our most important quality is physical attractiveness.
The whole idea is slightly bonkers. Think about it. Would you walk up to a stranger on the street, pout and ask them if they think you’re pretty? I hope not.
Study after study shows selfies harm body image. A recent report, led by Petya Eckler of the University of Strathclyde, spoke to several hundred female students and found spending time on Facebook looking at selfies is linked to negative feelings about body image.
Aside from the narcissism, selfies can literally kill you. The number of people hurting or killing themselves while trying to take photos of their own face to impress their social media friends is accelerating.
IN 2015, two men pulled the pin from a live grenade in order to take a selfie with it. The grenade exploded and the men died.
A man trying to take a selfie with a bull during Pamplona’s Running of the Bulls was gored by one of those running bulls. He died.
A study last year found globally there were 127 reported “selfie deaths” between March 2014 and September 2016. Not massive, but there’s something especially poignant about causing your own death by smartphone. It all sounds like civilisation is going to end in a blaze of self-promotion.
There can be good and bad selfies though. Like any art, it depends on what you do with it. So folks, while your favourite celebrity might make public appearances in their downtime, you don’t have carte blanche to a selfie any time you spot them in the wild. Particularly not if you’re a doctor with a duty of care towards your patients.
You don’t need to post a filtered selfie of your mug daily just to prove you’re still here.
Social media might be a magic mirror, but it’s up to us what the reflection shows.