Why risk your life for that Instagram moment?

Not every young person devoted to posting their travel adventures on their social media accounts is misguided and naïve, but sometimes it seems that way.

Instagram bloggers Jolie King and boyfriend Mark Firkin are facing ten years in a notorious jail in Iran for flying a drone without permission near tehran. or so local reports suggest.

they had no idea about the drone law — or any other Iranian law, it seems. Did they even check? Iran is certainly a stunning country with plenty of Instagrammable scenery to make online followers shiver with awe, but it also harbours one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet.

tensions against the West have risen recently with missile launches, pirated tankers and the unrelated arrest of a female British-Australian academic several months ago.

Were Jolie and Mark aware of any of this? or were they drifting around in a gorgeous Instadream. Hello trees, hello flowers. Let’s stand in this pool and say cheese; never mind that military installation in the background. Everyone is going to be so jealous!

Jolie and Mark, who are also of British-Australian nationality, were travelling through the country as part of a two-year adventure that was supposed to take them from Perth in Western Australia through 36 countries on their way to the UK, every step of it chronicled on their Instagram account.

official advice warned the couple against travelling to Iran, but they particularly wanted to go there to ‘break the stigma’ around visiting countries with a negative reputation.

Stigma! How I hate that word. It always suggest the blinkered prejudice of others, measured against the superiority of one’s own more reasonable and kindly viewpoint. Whereas the harsh reality is that countries such as Iran get a bad rap for very good reasons, one that is officially upheld by governments around the world.

BUT Jolie and Mark knew best. their optimism is admirable, but what were they going to do? Smash down 1,000 years of international hostilities with the power of a pretty smile and a jar of Vegemite?

Perhaps they are victims of their own online success. In the crowded field of international influencers, Youtube posters and Instagram travellers, the race is on to impress followers with destinations that are off the beaten track, covetable and unusual.

It has pushed people like this couple into perilous territory, beguiled by beauty and failing to see that even the most luscious scenery or envy-inducing destinations can still play host to the deepest dangers. And this situation is only going to get worse.

this week Apple launched its new generation iPhone 11, Pro and Max hands-on — and the most startling new features were not the performance or the battery life, but the camera hardware and software. there are now three cameras on the back of the Pro phones and two on the back of the iPhone 11, all capable of delivering top- quality images for bloggers everywhere and their inexhaustible demands for more photographs in more exotic locations. Even in Iran.

Until recently in that country, people accused of drugs offences were executed. Women who have taken off their headscarves to protest against Iran’s compulsory hijab law have been imprisoned.

Peaceful protesters are also regularly arrested, while Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a 41-year- old British-Iranian mother- of one, has been held at the same jail as Jolie and Mark since 2016, on trumped-up spying charges.

this country is no one’s idea of a holiday destination. I sympathise with Jolie and Mark’s terrible predicament — certainly, their detention is an outrage. But I do fear for this new army of vacuous bloggers, who travel the world in pursuit of nothing more than the perfect photograph. Which is then posted online to elicit the envy of their followers and perhaps secure a lucrative deal with a popular brand.

Last october, Indian husband-andwife bloggers Vishnu Viswanath and Meenakshi Moorthy died after falling off an overlook at Yosemite National Park. they were taking selfies when they plunged 800ft to their deaths. In July, three Canadian Youtube travel bloggers were killed after falling into a waterfall in British Columbia. Isn’t life worth more than a photograph?

PEOPLE get so wrapped up in the lives they live online that they fail to grasp the bigger picture. or to see that the world is something more than a playground to capture in a pouting pose on Instagram, without context or understanding.

Difficult political situations often roar around those perfectly tousled heads, agencies who would do these people harm watch from the sidelines and wait for their chance.

Jolie and Mark, innocent as elves, skipped into Iran with the best of intentions. Now they find their naivety cruelly exposed as they are used as pawns in a much bigger game.

there is no stigma in that, but it is still the most dreadful of situations. Bloggers, please beware.