If Nehru’s famous tryst with destiny speech was made now, there is a good chance that cyberspace would be inundated by selfies of people who attended the speech, alongside a pensive Nehru and others from the independence era. It may also have resulted in an # Independence Day ceremony, that would have trended relentlessly. The selfie, for the uninitiated, is a self-portrait, taken with a hand-held digital camera or camera phone. The selfie craze exploded when Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres tweeted a picture of her alongside a multitude of Hollywood stars. The picture was re-tweeted so often that the server crashed.
The dedicated selfie posts pictures of every boring detail of their lives from their new laptops and televisions to their book shelves and dining tables. American health associations have declared the obsessive taking of selfies as a mental disorder. The selfie addict is not a restaurateur or event managers favourite person and is a constant topic of outrage on social media.
Now, comes news of a course on taking selfies being offered by a university in England. Saurav Vats, who works in the hospitality industry, detests selfies. He says, “It was good fun in the beginning, but now suffers from overkill. My Facebook and Twitter timelines were full of people posting selfies from home, on vacations, for birthdays, anniversaries and other events. I cannot believe that people would actually spend money to learn how to take a selfie! It is degrading to photography. It is also tough on people from the hospitality industry. We have to constantly ask people to move away from the main door, especially when large groups take ‘groupies’.” IT professional Chirag Singh agrees, “I do not mind the occasional selfie, but would much rather not broadcast a picture of every aspect of my life. People who put up a lot of selfies are looking for attention and may need some help. I cannot believe that people are going to spend to learn how to take the perfect selfie. It is the easiest thing to photograph. I hope social media comes up with a feature that allows me to block selfies.”
For architect Gopikrishnan, selfies are not a bad phenomena. “In the age of the social media, it is a way for people to showcase different aspects of their lives. Overdoing it should be avoided. However, posting pictures of your favourite restaurant or your celebrity will not go out of fashion. It is bound to settle down in the next couple of years, once people get used to technology.”
On the selfie stick that is used to take selfies, Jibin Jose quips, “I cannot believe that the species that put a man on the moon, sent a mission to mars and has connected the planet via the internet considers it a major achievement to take pictures using a stick and post it online. I would say that the selfie is a reflection of the madness of the times we are living in.”
