Thesis Progymmasmata
Kylie Cardell & Kate Douglas dive into the world of the selfie in their article, “Visualising lives: “the selfie” as travel writing.” They discuss the rise of the selfie in recent times as phones have evolved to a point where we can take a picture of ourselves and upload it to the internet for anybody to see. The selfie is now used as a way for people to brag about their travel adventures for the world to see. In my opinion, this is not a beneficial trend. Personally, I am not a fan of the selfie as I think it is unhealthy for someone to look at themselves in a camera for that much time. In the travel world as well, selfies have become an unneeded source of competition among tourists around the planet.
Travel writing, as we previously read, has been diluted with the rise of the internet as more and more people are able to write about the places they have been, even if they are not educated well on the culture they just wrote about. The selfie only exemplifies this dilution. As mentioned, the selfie has created a competition amongst people on the internet to have this coolest picture and to show off where they have been. There are now “selfie-designated” spots in popular tourist areas due to the astronomical rise in taking a picture of yourself. This has become such an issue that certain places have banned the selfie due to people clogging up the areas too much. Also, the crave to have the best selfie has led to numerous deaths where (for example) someone will try to climb something that clearly should not be climbed, then they fall to their deaths. This is truly tragic as no one should feel so pressured by the internet to take a selfie that they put themselves in harm’s way. No longer is travel about seeing cool places that can only be experienced in person, now, all that matters are that you took a picture of yourself in front of these amazing places. People have become too focused on themselves rather than the places they are traveling to, leading to travel now becoming a bragging match. People simply travel to snap pictures of themselves, upload it to Instagram, and then brag about how many likes random people on the internet have gave them.