When Should You Take An Extreme Selfie?

by Hazel Cills and Gabrielle Noone

Welcome to Internet Etiquette, a new column brought to you by The Hairpin dot com. Every month Gabby Noone and Hazel Cills, two completely sane Internet addicts, will explain how to use the World Wide Web with manners and grace.

So: you want to take an extreme selfie. No shame. Listen, we all have our vices. But everybody knows what a selfie is, right? It’s when you build a robotic twin version of yourself but the coding is off and your robot twin turns evil on you.

Wait, oh my god, that’s the wrong column, let’s try that again.

A selfie is a photo you take of yourself. You probably use your smartphone or your Apple Watch if you’re a sick rich fuckhead. There are thirst trap selfies and cat selfies and yadda yadda yadda but we’re here to talk to you about the worst kind of selfie: the extreme selfie.

Hazel: OKAY, where should we even start?

Gabrielle: Should we talk about the guy who Instagrammed himself robbing a bank? It was a video, so that’s not technically a selfie. I hate when one millennial ruins it for the rest of us.

Hazel: Yeah, now we can never rob a bank and selfie ourselves.

Gabrielle: Exactly.

Hazel: And we’d look so cute doing so.

Gabrielle: I know.

Hazel: In your own words: what is an extreme selfie?

Gabrielle: I think it’s risking your safety to take the selfie OR you’re in an extreme area.

Hazel: Like a funeral?

Gabrielle: IT ALL DEPENDS. Like a selfie in the bathroom of a funeral is not extreme. A selfie that says “You know what? I look great in this all black outfit. I’m taking a pic. It’s what my late Aunt Gladys would’ve wanted me to do” is not extreme. But like, ALONG THE SIDE OF THE OPEN CASKET is extreme and rude.

Hazel: It’s all about the context of where you are in terms of the “extreme” aspects of the location/situation.

Gabrielle: Yes.

Hazel: Like, in the bathroom you’re just taking a regular selfie. In the graveyard? Eh, the emphasis is on the funeral.

Gabrielle: Exactly! There are a lot of factors at hand. And you need to consider whether you’re exploiting someone else’s pain. Like, those people with the selfie sticks at the site of the East Village fire were taking an extreme selfie, but they were jerks. I get maybe taking a picture of the fire if you were nearby, but I don’t understand what you’re trying to do with a selfie. You’re smiling in front of a fire that is burning people’s homes and businesses. You’re a sadist if you do that!

Hazel: How about this: if the situation is related to the death of strangers, maybe DON’T. But I want my grandchildren to selfie at my funeral.

Gabrielle: SAME. I believe in the future this will be a stipulation in wills. “Pull the plug and take selfies at my funeral.”

Hazel: I feel like there’s also this whole other side of this, which is like, the intention to seem ~cool~ and ~edgy~ by taking selfies in controversial circumstances where it has nothing to do with how good you look, idk.

Gabrielle: Hmm true. But with anything that’s done with the sole purpose of being cool or edgy, it never is!!! IS EDGY EVER A POSITIVE THING?

Hazel: Ew, true. Don’t be edgy.

Gabrielle: I literally think of, like, racist rich people being like “Look at my asymmetrical leather jacket with Chinese characters on it, isn’t it edgy?”

Hazel: Ugh ew.

Gabrielle: Okay, what do you think of that guy who took a selfie right after he got shot?

Hazel: On one level, this seems like a way for someone to like make light of their trauma or something. “Hey y’all, i’m fine, so fine i’m taking a smiling selfie.” Like when people take selfies in the hospital.

Gabrielle: I know, I can’t judge that. You just got shot, maybe your judgement is skewed. But also he’s like, “You know what, fuck you, guy who shot me. My Snapchat story is going to be so lit now.”

Hazel: Seriously. People deal with their shit in their own way. But like we said, there’s a huge difference between selfie-ing a personal situation and one in which other people HAVE DIED.

Gabrielle: I feel it’s kind of like…BEAR WITH ME HERE…the ethics of journalism…

Hazel: OMFG…go on…

Gabrielle: It’s like when people write things about their personal experience with a topic they actually are not an expert on or didn’t grow up with. For example, when a white feminist writes a supposed expose of sex workers and how she really “FELT FOR THEM.” That’s different than an actual sex worker writing about their personal experience. Like taking a selfie near something that does not impact your life, but impacts someone else’s life, is a dick move. It’s forcing yourself into someone else’s narrative.

Hazel: Yeah, just don’t insert yourself into a potentially devastating or touchy subject when you’re not a part of it!

Gabrielle: Like, stay in your lane, as with anything. Whereas if my house was on fire and I’m waiting outside for the fire department to come, I am allowed to take a fire selfie.

Hazel: Question: do you think when a selfie is taken in these circumstances, a layer of humor is automatically added to them because selfies are so lighthearted? Like even when someone takes a selfie of themselves crying I am like “Wow…powerful…but also, this is Instagram.” IDK!

Gabrielle: True. Selfies are just inherently funny. I don’t take them super seriously.

Hazel: So I wonder when kids take funeral selfies like “I’m so sad today” they think it actually comes off as sad.

Gabrielle: That’s true! I feel like I have always approached selfies with a bit of irony!

Hazel: I mean, our cuteness isn’t ironic.

Gabrielle: True. I honestly take selfies mostly to document when I look good and put it on blast. Like, six out of the seven days of the week I look FINE but not GREAT, just because I was busy and didn’t have time to get ready to my maximum cute potential! But now I’m thinking about that girl who took the infamous Snapchat, “going to all of garden” and now i’m loling. But at the same time i think that was just some serious documentation.

Hazel: I think we’re all just super used to documenting everything, esp. The The Youngest of the Folks, so when it comes to extreme selfies it’s like…nbd. Selfies don’t feel self-centered because they feel so goddamn normal.

Gabrielle: It feels like a tool because the capability is so easy. You just press a button on your phone. Olds are probably more obsessed with selfies than young people.

Hazel: I know? it’s like…old news, folks. Also Obama took a funeral selfie.

Gabrielle: I remember mostly thinking it was a controversy because Michelle was left out of the pic.

Something to consider is the idea that selfies are about making everything about yourself, which I guess is what the conservative commentators were jumping on, like, “ugh OBAMA MAKES THE NELSON MANDELA FUNERAL ALL ABOUT HIM.” I mean, there are definitely young people who are taking selfies when it’s disrespectful!

Hazel: Yeah totally!

Gabrielle: But like young people will always do something disrespectful, this is just a new iteration. JUST LIKE OLDS DO DISRESPECTFUL THINGS.

Gabrielle: Should we discuss Selfish and #ivegotaselfieforeveryoccasion?

Hazel: IDK, I think Kim’s selfie collection is extreme because of the controversy it’s brought. The hyper-documentation of one person at all times.

Gabrielle: Remember the episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians? They’re going to court and Kris is like “Kim, stop taking pictures of yourself, your sister is going to jail.”

I think this is a perfect example of the politics of selfies. She’s feeling her look, but the moment is wrong. Like she probably should’ve waited until she got home, but then it wouldn’t have been a plot point for the show.

Maybe that’s the entire moral: just wait until you get home to take your selfie if the setting is questionable. Unless it’s your own setting. Selfies are about asserting your own agency, but you have to be careful that while taking them, you’re not robbing someone else of their agency. Like, I will take a selfie at my own funeral because I will be a glam ghost.

Hazel: GODDAMN, yes.

Gabrielle: I’m pretty sure by then Apple will have developed technology to capture ghosts, but phone screens will still crack.

Hazel: Wow you’re making me…so excited rn.

Gabrielle: “The Apple iPhone 197 has ghost capturing capabilities” BUT IF YOU DROP IT ON A FEATHER PILLOW, IT WILL STILL CRACK INTO A MILLION PIECES! PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE, BITCHES!!!!

Hazel Cills is a writer and witch living in New York City. She doesn’t trust a pizza slice she can’t fold.

Gabby Noone is a writer and student majoring in The Cheesecake Factory menu. She lives in New York.