Selfie stick
A selfie stick is an appendage that helps a person take a selfie. Though the concept is still quite young, a selfie stick can take several forms:
- If the selfie is not a photograph but a video, the selfie stick is often a stick of chewing gum. Many people who take selfies use gum to enhance the impression of themselves as an intellectual.
- Some selfie sticks are threaded through the nostrils, which likewise goes a long way toward showing the thoughtful side of the taker.
Otherwise, the selfie stick helps hold the selfie tool away from oneself so that a good selfie can be taken.
- A remarkable number of young ladies whom no one would touch with the proverbial ten-foot-pole nevertheless use one to take a selfie from the right distance.
- Selfie sticks allow the taking of "point-of-view" (POV) pornography when acting alone.
The selfie stick achieves the goal of producing a photograph that shows you were somewhere important, and implies that you had a friend smart enough to click the shutter button.
History[edit]
Narcissus invented the selfie stick in the prehistoric era. Back then, 3 megapixel lenses were not standard on smartphones, and he and his fellow Narcissists had only the medium of oil painting. The first selfie stick employed mirrors with clever cutouts so that Narcissus could see himself and paint himself not painting himself.
A Japanese selfie stick was included in a 1995 book of Things the Japanese Have Given Us that Might Not Be Crap Someday. The selfie stick is on page 67, between bukakke, gel pens, and souvenir sweatshirts from "California University."
The selfie stick was patented in Canada in 2005, which means that all the selfie sticks at the check-out counter at Walgreen have to be made by fly-by-night Asian firms too small to be sued. In theory, the U.S. trade deficit is twice its nominal level because of unpaid royalties on selfie sticks.
The selfie stick has been criticised for encouraging the navelism of modern society. Barack Obama had someone write, in his autobiography, Schemes of My Fathers, that American youth needed to pay less attention to photographing themselves and more about forming a community that he might agitate.
Restrictions[edit]
Many venues restrict the use of selfie sticks. The restrictions are justified in terms of the safety and distraction of other people, but the actual reason is a desire to congregate in places where dopes don't appear.
The Premier League in Britain has banned selfie sticks from all but two venues (those two being on the edge of Scotland), so that football fans can concentrate on taunting and brawling with one another. Arsenal ban "any object that could be used as a weapon," except of course hip-flasks. As Arsenal backers have adapted all conceivable objects, the club require that fans of the visitors arrive in straitjackets.
A ban on selfie sticks is in place at the National Gallery of Australia and at the Smithsonian in the United States "to protect the overall visitor experience." It is important when viewing a crucifix in a jar of urine and contemplating its artistic message that there are no jerks in the vicinity taking selfies. That would be self-important.
Music festivals in the U.S. and Australia have banned selfie sticks, which have resulted in unauthorized recording of performances from senseless and unrealistic angles. The organizers insist that any piracy take place through hand-held operation of the smartphone and that the edge of the overcoat appear continuously in the recording.