Let me shove that selfie stick up your arse

Ok so it’s evolutionary, the way we travel compared with even 10 years ago has changed. Now we have the ability to live feed Facebook, Youtube and Instagram with where we are every second of every minute while on holidays.

Now I will be the first to admit that a selfie stick in concept is actually a really good idea.

Having the opportunity to capture a moment as if the photo is taken by a third person and not have to worry about you head being at some strange angle like it used to be when you tried taking a selfie by hand.

With this in mind I have actually considered buying one, but after watching the selfie stick craze going wild in the likes of Phuket, Chiang Mai or the islands I am happy to say I will never buy one.

The selfie stick craze is now beyond a joke. Now why am I so against them, aside from an instance in Walking Street at Pattaya where one Indian tourist was so consumed with wanting to use his selfie stick to take a photo, he was oblivious to me standing near him and proceeded to whack me in the head.

Now I am sure this tourist will be returning to India to tell all his friends about the crazy looking Aussie guy that grabbed him by the throat but that’s another story.

What gets me, and you see this with all race of tourist, but the Chinese seem to be one of the biggest culprits, is they hit the hot tourist spots and can’t put the fucking things away.

They are clicking photos like their lives depend on it, and for me, they are missing out on what they are actually there to see.

It wouldn’t surprise me that they would end up going back home, checking out the photos and suddenly noticing things in the photos that they never saw when they were there because they simply couldn’t put the selfie stick away for 5 minutes and actually absorb their surrounds.

One of the other major considerations is that tourists are putting themselves in potentially dangerous situations specifically for the sole purpose of getting that perfect selfie.

Now what kind of situations could possibly be dangerous with a selfie stick I hear you ask? On a friends blog he spoke about seeing a Chinese couples stopping in the middle of the road with a selfie stick taking photos of themselves on the motorbike while holding up traffic.How more ridiculous is that?

So I am not saying ban technology, I will be the first to say that if I visit somewhere new in Thailand I normally take at minimum my mobile phone and DSLR, then depending on the place may take my GOPRO with me also, but let me illustrate how I tend to behave.

Let’s say I have just turned up to Phra Nakhon Khirir Historical Park for the first time; it’s exciting, and truly read my story on it because it’s a great place to visit, but I didn’t walk around the whole place for 2 hours with a GOPRO attached to my chest, and my mobile phone locked into a selfie stick getting in people’s way every 2 seconds taking selfie’s constantly.

I took a few shots of each area, then walked around observing some self restraint and showing respect for the place I was.  I bet I could tell you more about what I saw there than the example tourist I outlined above that couldn’t stop taking photo’s!!

I say BAN THE SELFIE STICK! Yes they shit me that much.

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