Why all the selfie stick hate?

What are were really criticising when we bemoan the selfie stick: the lack of self-awareness from those using them, or an envy of the fun they appear to be having?

If you’ve been to any major outdoor tourist attraction since the summer, you’ve probably noticed people walking around with their smartphone or camera attached to a pole.

‘Selfie sticks’ have become the must-have accessory of snap-happy tourists as they try to capture the perfect image of their travels. The mainstream media has labelled selfie sticks as ‘wands of narcissism’ in articles that paint a negative picture of this new type of photography.

But is the selfie stick necessarily a symbol of narcissism? If you take a good look at some of the more common use cases, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

The rise of the selfie stick

At the Centre for the Study of Invention and Social Process, we’ve been keeping an eye on the rise of selfie stick use. We wanted a way to try out different methods of researching digital phenomena.

What we are noticing is a different story to what the mainstream media is telling. In one sense, the mainstream media are telling an accurate story of selfie sticks being an annoyance in public places – or the offline environment. You read about selfie sticks getting in the way, or people being unwittingly hit by a careless tourist.

There is also the growing list of museums, galleries, concert venues and football stadia banning selfie sticks out of concern for the safety of patrons or the objects patrons are coming to see.

A ban for the sake of safety concerns and common courtesy is fair enough, but the next step to brand them as narcissistic is inaccurate.

Next time you see the tourists around your local landmark, take some time to do some subtle people watching. What do you notice? We noticed that most people using selfie sticks are in groups, having fun and enjoying one anothers’ company.

Essentially, a selfie stick allows you to take a timed self portrait without worrying about finding somewhere for your camera that’s stable, safe and at the correct height to correctly frame the image.

Timed self-portraits allow for an additional level of playfulness. This use of the selfie stick is far from narcissistic; rather it shows a love for others and the desire to capture those moments spent with others – sometimes in a world-renowned location, but equally in locations as mundane as the living room.

Yes, there is disquiet from those annoyed with the narcissism of those taking selfie sticks to music gigs and incessantly filming or taking pictures, but those people were blocking the view with their phones and tablets long before the selfie stick was commonplace.

When the picture taken with a selfie stick is posted onto a social media platform, the story takes another turn away from narcissism.

#selfiestick - not as self-centered as you think

I recently spent hours analysing the content of a few thousand Instagram images tagged with #selfiestick and it was a surprisingly cheering process.

The next time you see a picture tagged with #selfiestick, see what other words are used in the image’s caption. In the images we’ve analysed so far, we found an overwhelming amount of positive words such as ‘love’, ‘family’ and, ‘friends’.

The associated images are of people having fun, celebrating weddings, holidays, house parties, birthdays and the like. These are hardly moments of narcissism or self-centeredness, rather they are moments where community is formed and reinforced, whether that community comprises family, friends or colleagues.

The purpose of the photograph is to be able to recall the memories associated with the event.

Among the saccharine words found in these image captions, is a new word – ‘groupfie’ - or group selfie. It’s not an elegant word but a word that very much indicates that the self-obsessed selfie is out in favour of bringing those nearest and dearest into the frame; the majority of images I analysed had more than one person in the frame.

Those nearest and dearest include children, grandparents and even pets getting into the frame – dogs seem the most confused when faced with their owner wielding a selfie stick.

Next time you bemoan the selfie stick, it’s worth thinking about what you’re really bemoaning. Is it ire at the lack of self-awareness from a selfie stick user when they get in the way, much like an overladen backpacker in rush hour?

Or is it envy of other people celebrating and sharing life together? Whatever the selfie stick symbolises, for good or bad, it’s far from narcissism.