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Has the Selfie Culture Gone too far?

Has the Selfie Culture Gone too far?

 

Have you seen people taking selfies in places they shouldn’t have before? I see that all the time, I saw a tourist get close to a saltwater crocodile that was basking on the side of the pool, the croc was very still and had its mouth wide open, the guy went very close, I mean dangerously close to it to take a selfie, many of the folks that were nearby tried to prevent him from doing so, but  he managed to evade the park wardens and got into the reptile’s enclosing, he gave his friend his phone and asked him to take a photo of him with the raptor, he then moved much closer, crouched a little bit and touched the croc’s snout, who surprisingly remained still, “I wonder how these creatures can stay motionless for so long,” he said to his friend, “I have been here for more than an hour now, and this monster creature hasn’t moved a muscle,” he added, “are you sure this is a live animal and not just a piece of log, sculpted to look like a living thing?”

“I will put my head into its open jaws then take a selfie, to show all my friends on social media that I pulled such a terrific stunt,” but first,” said his friend, “put this in its jaw,” don’t risk that danger before you properly examine the creature,”

It that instant, the Godzilla snapped its jaws shut, ramming the plastic bottle he was carrying and sparing his hands by just a few inches,

The youngster completely overtaken by shock was left speechless, he leaped off like a dear out of the creature’s perimeter fence almost injuring himself, later on after he had recovered from the shock he was heard ranting, “all this time I have been moving around that monster it was alive? It looked like a rock or some sculpture,” what would have happened had he grabbed me by the knee and dragged me into the pool?

Such a close shave.  He came this close to having his arm sabered by a giant saltwater crocodile.

The invention of the portable phone camera has spelled doom upon humanity, all over the world, people especially the youngsters are going to such dangerous heights just for the sake of taking a selfie to boast about it to their friends and colleagues, they will put their lives on the line just to get that rare photo, youngsters climb steep rock faces, or onto the head of a giant monument, once at the top, they lift one leg, to stand on the other, you then hear them screaming to the camera they were carrying on one hand as they spoke to their friends on the other part of the world, “Hey look, I am standing on top of the steepest rock face of the table mountains suspended with just one foot, watch me make this cool stunt.”

People put heads out of windows of flying planes so that they can capture their selfies with the heads in the clouds and the blue skies, you see some crazy people rushing towards the summit of an active volcano, when it started erupting, the local residents started evacuating, they were moving away from the fiery mountain as fast as they could, when people are running away from the volcano, these crazy folks are going the opposite direction, they head towards it, they then stand there next to the molten larva, they watch it boil like water in a cooking pot, they stand there enjoying the scene while simultaneously taking pictures and videos of themselves, oblivious to the fact that their lives are in danger, and even if they know that, they don’t care, they don’t give a da**

They do extremely dangerous staff just for the sensation, just for the sake of being the next social media star, “you know what, once my photos or video goes viral, I am gonna be the next most famous teen in the world, its gonna be so cool! Do you believe that?”

Sometimes you see some silly tourists trying to get out of their safari cars so that they can take selfies with the wild animals they have just come across, there in the woods, the park guide who was showing these adventurers around, sees some of them trying to get off the SUV, he gives them a stern warning, “Please stay in your cars, don’t make sudden moves, remember however cute they may look, the are still wild animals, that bear may look lethargic, but if you get too close to it, then will you see its true colors, if he sees you as threat or food, then will become as agile as a monkey and tear you into pieces, you think its slow, but once spooked, it will run as fast as dear, and catch you in just a few leaps.”

Many of these  crazy folks act this way, because at the back of their minds, they think that the process is only gonna take a few seconds and the risk is therefore worth taking, “I just need two seconds with my dangerous friend, after that I will be the most famous fellow in my city,”

What they never really come to grasp is that those few seconds of  super excitement may be the last few seconds of their lives, there is no joke about it, you don’t throw away your life in exchange for silly photo or video,

We all know the extremes the selfie culture has gone to, for instance when there is an accident on a busy motorway, an area that is always full of traffic, cars as well as humans alike, do you know what happens these days when a major accident occurs on in these places in broad daylight? Yes you guessed it right, first you hear screams of shocked motorists and pedestrians, then the next thing on Peoples minds is their, “PHONES,” where is my phone, where is it? Oh! I can’t miss that clip, you will hear this from most witnesses around the scene Within seconds, motorist traffic comes to a stand still, and the accident scene is surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of people,

Most of them are too busy taking pictures and videos with their phones, they film the screeched road surface, the mashed up vehicles and the bodies of the accident victims who were squashed by vehicle tires on the road, ignoring the fact that there are surviving victims in the car who need emergency medical attention. Luckily there are few good Samaritans in the crowd who decide to put their phones into better use by calling for help, and less than an hour later, the paramedics arrive on the scene, and carrying off the injured to the hospitals. But for some of them, the arrival of the Paramedics is a scene a little too late, they had lost too much blood, before their arrival and there was nothing much they could do for them. The spectators continue to take photos and record videos vigorously, with no shame nor guilt, had only a small portion of them put aside their phones and did some CPR to the accident victims while waiting for the paramedics, many of them would have survived, especially those that were in the bus. But because  precious few seconds and minutes were wasted by first people to be on the scene, many lives were lost.

Contemporary culture states that if something really bad is happening to you and you need urgent help, chances are that people watching will scramble for their phones to film and not to call for urgent help, if your house is on fire and your neighbor witnesses it, chances are that he/she will spend the first precious seconds filming your misery before calling for help, by the time the fire brigade arrives, the flames would have swallowed your entire house , when the sparks started, you were screaming for help, your neighbors did nothing, instead of trying to save your house, they wanted to enjoy the show a little bit while your entire life’s worth of work is reduced to ashes. This is the brutal reality of the twenty first century.



The Above Text contains an excerpt from the book named”A world of Fakes”


 

 


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