A Modest Proposal

[Nanohedron]

That is truly hideous. Is it supposed to be, do you think?

These days? I honestly just don't know if the pic was intended to be ironic or not. So I have decided to be at ease with the ambiguity.

[I.D.10-t]

Had to go back through the link to find out.

From a plastic surgeon's weblog. Is Social Media Fueling the Plastic Surgery Industry?

[ytliek]

The music industry certainly is selfy infested.

[chas]

About sticks/selfies in general: Honestly, how vain can someone be?

Yeah, as has been pointed out, that's an exaggeration.

But I'm a mole. I don't think I've ever seen anyone taking one. I almost smacked a family member who took a pic of her dinner when we were in a restaurant and posted it to Facebook, right in the middle of dinner. Almost, that is (in my best Foghorn Leghorn voice).

[chas]

Otay, I saw a selfie stick yesterday. It was a biker chick, on the Schoodic Peninsula in Maine, taking a picture of herself in front of her bike in the parking lot. Not with the beautiful scenery in the background.

I will point out that, day before yesterday I saw a couple more firsts, these on Mt Desert Island. First we saw a guy on a bike, towing a baby trailer behind him. With a dog in it. Then, later, a guy with a Snugli. With a dog in it.

Something weird going on up here.

[Nanohedron]

I'll say.

Mme. Tussaud's now has a figure of Kim Kardashian taking a (handheld) selfie in front of a constantly changing scenic background. Personally, I think they should have given her a selfie stick just to do it up right. I mean, seriously, people: Get with the times.

[benhall.1]

I'll say.

Mme. Tussaud's now has a figure of Kim Kardashian taking a (handheld) selfie in front of a constantly changing scenic background. Personally, I think they should have given her a selfie stick just to do it up right. I mean, seriously, people: Get with the times.

Being who she is, I imagine that Kim Kardashian might also need a selfie stick with some sort of periscope arrangement for taking shots of those hard to photograph places.

[Mitch]

nice thread!

Yeah ..I think about this all the time!

I have this image where they excavate under the Easter-Island statues to find that all those stone heads are peering down into I-phones. They all face the same way to shade the tiny little screens and their thumbs are still texting in manic spasms long after the whole population of productive humans have starved because no one is growing food and all the trees are gone.

How much of your real field of view is occupied by your tiny little screen?

Measure it - and I guarantee - that it will be the ratio of the life stolen from you.

Put it on a stick?

Well that's a good start - I happen to know a stick.
He retired a few years ago because he stopped feeling special.

I suppose that is the fate of the fashion-leader. The followers catch up.

I could wish that humans were self-excavating and the stone idols could walk.

Until then, the world is on a stick.

And it's not a nice stick.
I am glad he's shut in his cabana - a recluse wallowing in the damage he did - pretending it was worth while.
He was good for a couple of photos .. a fraction of meaning puffed up as a little screen obscuring the universe.

F F F F Fashion.

We are having a partay .. and the bill?
No one cares so long as the party goes on.

the bill goes into the earth. And soon the earth will remind us what's due.

All that stuff outside the ever-shrinking screen ..remember that?

Here we are on the internet - the biggest earth destroying machine ever invented.
Add it up - you will now know why the ISPs are beginning to flex their muscle - they rule now. Until the power goes off.

Learn to grow food - there is plenty space outside the screen.
So long as the climate has anything left after this orgy of energy-waste on a stick.

Hope it happens soon.

[chas]

Learn to grow food -

Or at the very least, learn what's edible in your environs. Every year in the spring, I make a salad from the yard. Violets (leaves and blooms), dandelion greens, day lilies (only leaves in the spring, but every part is edible, the blooms are delicious), hotounia. Poke weed is a delicious cooking green in the spring (poisonous later in the season). We usually have a couple of morel mushrooms, probably one of the finest foods on the earth.

All we can grow is a few types of mint, because we're totally wooded. But I do love tea with spearmint or lemon balm.

[Coffee]

Learning what's edible for forage and hunting in your area... is a start, but won't work for everyone. It can't work for everyone.
Last I heard the population of the planet is around, what, 7 billion or so. A bit more than that by now, I'm sure.
Meanwhile, the carrying capacity of this pale blue dot, for our species, assuming a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, is about 9 million.
Agriculture is needed to support our numbers.

Anyways, yeah, selfie sticks... um... why‽ I know what I look like, so when I take pictures, it's of things and people around me. Period dot.

[Nanohedron]

Anyways, yeah, selfie sticks... um... why‽

I could have asked that in a very real sense the other day. Saw my first selfie stick but the young lady was taking a handheld selfie with the unused stick poking out into the crowd. Not being one to pass on an opportunity, I nudged, "I think you're supposed to hold it by the other end, right?" To which she ironically conceded my point, saying, "Weeee're novices."

[Nanohedron]

Apparently even a monkey can do it:

[an seanduine]

Curiously, when I did think of a useful purpose for a selfie-stick (using one to examine the condition of my gutters without having to break out a ladder) I found it to be way too short..

Bob

[Katharine]

I don't understand the hate for "selfies" in general. Yes, there are people who abuse it. But the hate seems to be for someone who does it, period, regardless of the circumstances (the real crime should be for whoever coined the ridiculously-cutesy term "selfie," and for everyone who uses it). But I'm not sure what is so offensive about taking a self-portrait, but it's acceptable to have someone else take a picture of you? Not everyone has someone else to take a picture of them, or wants to bother some random stranger to do it for them (and trust said stranger with their phone/camera). Some of us are usually the ones behind the camera, and sometimes it would be nice to actually be IN the picture for once.

I have plenty of friends who share self-photos. They don't overdo it, and I enjoy seeing their vacations, new motorcycles, activities, new glasses, etc. (Now if I could only get them to stop posting pictures of their ugly kids...)

Here we are on the internet - the biggest earth destroying machine ever invented.

You're... posting this anti-internet rant on the internet.

[s1m0n]

Why is using a selfie stick any vainer than posing for any other kind of photo?