Why do people hate selfie stick?

For anyone who is waving a selfie stick, the whole world is jut his small phone screen, regardless of who and what is around.

Selfie sticks have started off like a wildfire ever since they were first launched in China sometime late last summer. Go anywhere remotely touristic and you’ll see groups of stick-brandishing, laughing, mouth-wide-opening people huddling together for a group shot of nothing much more than their own selves.

Called  “the most controversial gift of 2014” by the New York Times and, on the other, “the greatest invention of 2014” by TIME magazine, the selfie stick is a point of controversy for many. Some call it the “staff of Narcissus” or the rather poetic “solipsistick.” But I think a basic observation can be made and that is that using a selfie stick makes a person look like a dork.

After spending 10 weeks in Brazil this past winter, where selfie photography has become a national passion to rival soccer, I spent my fair share of time watching people make themselves look ridiculous for the sake of a selfie stick shot.

There was the guy in Rio de Janeiro waiting to go up the Sugarloaf Mountain cable car. His gigantic selfie stick kept getting caught in the vinyl ceiling of the waiting area and then inconvenienced other passengers inside the already-cramped cable car.

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. I took a picture of her: