Kids these days, hunh? When they're not inappropriately twerking or tweeting they're clogging up the internet with questionable self-portraiture. Indeed the phenomenon of the "selfie" has reached such epic proportions that it is estimated* one in three of us have now been exposed to dangerous quantities of Instagrammed nostril. Unpleasant as that may be, however, I regret to inform you that the selfie has sunk to new lows. People aren't just taking horribly close close-ups anymore, they're taking them against a backdrop of dead people and Holocaust memorials.
A new Tumblr, Selfies at Serious Places, documents some of the most egregious examples of over-zealous selfie-taking. There's a kid doing a thumbs-up in front of the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, a guy grinning in front of a house fire and a jokingly wide-eyed selfie at the Auschwitz memorial, thoughtfully hashtagged #respect. While these people all appear oblivious to the inappropriateness of their iPhone moments, some of their friends can see the bigger picture. One person has kindly circulated a photo with the caption: "MY FRIEND TOOK A SELFIE AT A FUNERAL AND DIDN'T REALIZE HIS DEAD GRANDMA WAS IN THE BACKGROUND I CAN'T BREATHE". Or, apparently, use punctuation.
This isn't the first instance of selfie-shaming to hit the internet. There's already a blog called Grindr Remembers, featuring sultry hook-up shots in front of Holocaust memorials … because nothing says "I'm great in bed" like evoking the memory of mass murder and state-sponsored persecution. There was also an outpouring of outrage when the family of George Zimmerman's lawyer celebrated with ice-cream cones and a group-selfie hashtagged #dadkilledit.
Assuming you aren't yourself a fan of the regular selfie in a morgue, it's possible you are now mourning the bleak reality into which phone cameras have led us. But, I wouldn't worry too much; the trend of selfies in serious places doesn't quite signal the sepia-filtered end of human decency and social mores. Rather it could be seen as part of a tradition. People have been snapping pictures of themselves with their dead grandma in the background ever since the daguerreotype burst on to the scene. Indeed, post-mortem photography was all the rage among the Victorians, who liked to remember their dead by taking creepy photos with them. You can imagine the tabloid headlines when that trend started: "Depraved immigrants pose with DEAD babies in TWISTED 'Memento Mori' craze sweeping London." So really, this is just history repeating itself. First as tragedy, then as farce, then as a Tumblr going viral.
Victorians were intrigued by the way in which photography had the power to enable people to live on in some way after their death, deriving a frisson of excitement. But the photographs themselves could have unpredictable afterlives, being passed down from generation to generation, and still making tabloid headlines today. That has been taken to a whole new level in the digital age, where a poor choice of selfie can quickly give you the 15 megabytes of fame you didn't really want.
When it comes down to it, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with taking selfies in serious places. They're a way to process an experience. A way to remember, mourn and move on. But breach selfietiquette with inappropriate expressions or a poor choice of hashtag and you may never live the experience down. So pick your poses and your Instagram filters wisely, kids. And avoid duckface at all cost. If you end up a meme, you may be as well be a good-looking one.
*estimates are author's own
