TAKING THE PERFECT SELFIE
EVERYONE IS USING A SELFIE STICK NOW, BUT BE WARY: IT’S BANNED IN SOME PLACES.
From nowhere the selfie stick is everywhere.
The monopod used to take selfies by positioning a smartphone or camera beyond the arm’s length was a hit from the Eiffel Tower to the Times Square during the last holiday season.
In China, people have given it a special name — Shen’gun, or holy wand — because it usually produces unexpected results. Needless to say,
Shen’gun is as popular in China as any other smartphone market. An online shopping index of taobao.com, the largest customer-to-customer retail site in China, shows the search for “selfie stick” was more than double that for the “iPhone” in early December.
Despite being modest, Chinese people love to take selfies. The fast-improving quality of lens and photographs on smartphones had already made people somewhat narcissistic; now the selfie stick is raising the self-craze to a higher level.
So, welcome to the era of selfie 2.0.
Humans have been inventing tools to overcome natural defects. Selfie sticks were created because humans do not have arms as long as a sloth’s or orangutan’s (in relative terms). Even without the selfie stick, celebrities were driving the selfie crowd crazy with their antics. For example, at last year’s Oscar ceremony, hostess Ellen DeGeneres invited a number of Hollywood stars to take what turned out to be one of the most famous selfies with Bradley Cooper holding the camera.
“If only Bradley’s arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars,” DeGeneres tweeted under the shot that put Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Roberts and half of Angelina Jolie’s face in the frame. Within an hour, it became the most popular tweet ever, with more than 870,000 re-tweets and 210,000 favorites. Had Cooper used a selfie stick to include Jolie’s full face, DeGeneres could have put more hashtags in the tweet.
The selfie-stick craze probably originated in South Korea last year and quickly spread to neighboring countries such as China and Japan, and Southeast Asian countries, where teenagers are obsessed with social networking, cyber slangs, emojis — animated emoticons, and of course, taking selfies. Figures from taobao.com show that females have bought about 61 percent of the selfie sticks sold since September, and people below 30 years of age placed more than 65 percent of the orders.
A must have
Most of the selfie sticks sold in the market can be extended to 1.5 meters, far enough to click a “nice group selfie” at events like the Oscars. An embedded Bluetooth module on the stick controls the camera in the smartphone, making it easier to click photographs.
Lily Fang caries a selfie stick every time she goes to meet friends or attend parties, or takes a weekend break. “I love to share photographs online via social platforms … the selfie stick always gives me the right perspective, something which was not possible before,” says the 25-year-old who works for a bank in Xiamen, Fujian province.
The magic code for a perfect selfie, Fang says, is to keep the camera at a level higher than the head and to the side. Only this way can the camera capture bigger eyes and a thinner chin — both beauty standards for young women in Asia. “Many Asian women have a round face … and try their best to hide the ‘ baby face’ in selfies to prevent people from thinking they are overweight,” Fang says. This is precisely where selfie sticks help. And they are affordable too, priced below 100 yuan ($16) each.
Chen Dongsheng, a selfie stick retailer on taobao.com, says he sold more than 3,000 pieces last year. “The orders started to jump after October … on one day I once sold about 500 pieces,” Chen says. Most of the buyers are young women and people who love to travel. “I think the tourism industry helped my business. Who does not want to take the best photograph at a popular destination? Using a selfie stick will help a person get a photo- graph that can beat others.”
Word of caution
But Chinese tourists should pay extra attention to local rules when using selfie sticks abroad. A number of museums in the United States have banned visitors from using selfie sticks fearing the long and sometimes clumsy wands could damage the valuable objects on display. The Museum of Modern Art and Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York do not allow visitors to even carry selfie sticks inside their buildings.
Tens of thousands of tourists from China visited New York during this Chinese Lunar New Year, which fell on Feb 19, and some definitely carried selfie sticks with them. The United States issued 351,650 business and tourist visas to Chinese nationals from December to January, a year-on-year increase of 68.2 percent, which makes it all the more important for Chinese to be wary of local rules while visiting US tourist sites.
An extra-hand
Selfie sticks can be used for other purposes too. Last month, a woman reporter with Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV was spotted doing a live coverage using a smartphone attached to a selfie stick.
Liu Jianhong, sports commentator with LeTV.com, says the selfie stick and 4G-compatible smartphone are becoming necessary tools in a reporter’s kit. “In the past, live broadcasts meant satellite trucks and several on-field staff. But smartphones have made it possible for a reporter to carry out an assignment alone,” Liu says.
During a recent online live photograph and text report on a Xiaomi Corp product release event, China Daily, too, used a selfie stick to capture a better-angle photograph of Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun standing almost 20 meters away.
The newest addition to our reporting team has helped on-site reporters to take a number of panoramic photographs of several thousand people. It has indeed made our job easier because all we have to do is to attach a smartphone to a selfie stick, keep calm and click.
Using a selfie stick will help a person get a photograph that can beat others.” Chen Dongsheng, selfie stick retailer on taobao.com