Hate selfie-sticks? You’re not alone, survey of pet peeves finds
Selfie sticks span the centuries: Re-enactors portraying Imperial Roman Army soldiers photograph themselves with a selfie stick as they stand in front of Hadrian’s Wall near Gilsland, northern England.
After being banned everywhere from Disneyland to the Louvre museum, the selfie-stick emerged as the No. 1 thing travelers hate when they are out seeing the world.
That’s the word from MissTravel.com, which surveyed 58,000 users of the travel dating website to find the Biggest Travel Pet Peeve of 2015.
Forty-two percent of respondents said they hated the selfie stick, which just last year was touted by Time magazine as one of the 25 greatest inventions of all time.
The website’s CEO offered this rather gentle perspective:
“Although you may have good intentions, carrying a selfie stick around could be seen as a sign of narcissism and self-absorption by your travel companion,†Brandon Wade said in a statement.
Ya think?
Other pet peeves include:
2. People who hog overhead bins on airplanes (17%).
3. People who take photos with iPads (12%).
4. People who are obsessed and distracted by social media on their electronic device (12%).
5. People who bring smelly foods to eat on airplanes (7%).
But back to the selfie stick. Travelers seem to have a love-hate relationship with them. They went from convenient to crass while proliferating around the world.
And the stick-bashing has ensued ever since.
Katherine Martinko of Treehugger writes:
“I’ll never forget the woman at a spectacular northeastern beach who never took her eyes off her extended cell phone, carefully wading into the warm turquoise ocean while holding her selfie stick at the perfect angle. She posed, smiled, angled her head, posed again. Not once did she put down her stick to actually swim in the water.â€
A CNN opinion piece by Zoe Li says in a story titled “Opinion: Why the selfie stick must die:†“If ever there was a product that preyed so heavily on our fear of insignificance, it’s the selfie stick, or as I like to call it, the narcisstick.â€
They’ve been banned at the Palace of Versailles in France, the National Gallery of London, Smithsonian museums and galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Disneyland and Disney World, the Kentucky Derby and the Soundwave Music Festival in Australia, among other places.
So if you’re sticking with the stick, use it judiciously. Now about traveling with your drone ...
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