Selfies, everybody knows them. I think it’s fair to say that each and everyone of you out there has taken at least one selfie once in your lifetime, am I right? Some of you might take a selfie once a week (or even once a month) and others of you might take hundreds a day. In the last few years selfies have become quite popular and as you may know the word itself has been chosen as the “Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year” in 2013.

Of course it’s no big news that there are some people out there who take selfies way too seriously. But are you aware of the fact that selfies can lead to very dangerous situations? Some of you probably do know that because you read about some of the accidents, which happen while making selfies, in the newspapers. A frightful example of such an accident is the one of a married couple with children. They were in Portugal (probably on an excursion) by the cliffs and the couple wanted to take a selfie. To make it look even better they climbed over the safety barrier, but unfortunately then slipped and fell off. The most horrific part about this accident is, that their children witnessed them falling down the cliffs. It is said that they are slowly recovering and are now living with some of their relatives.[1]

As you can see, people are willing to take high risks for the perfect selfie.
For instance, have you ever heard of roofing or roofers? Roofers are people who practice a form of extreme sport; they climb up very high buildings without any safety measures. They then take selfies or videos. Roofing is a form of urban exploration; it is extremely popular in Moscow. If you google the keywords “Roofers Moscow” and take a look at the pictures you can imagine how dangerous this “sport” is. When asked why he does roofing a guy from Moscow called Kirill answered: “We want adrenaline. We’re like junkies; we can’t live without it. You want to test your possibilities and take everything from life. You try it once and it is very hard to stop.” Furthermore, he said that he already had been asked to promote some products while being up there.[2]

All in all, selfies are fun to take and are great memories as long as you don’t exaggerate it – that would not only be bad for yourself but also for the people around you, because if people don’t like selfies as much as you do they might get a little bit annoyed.

What is your opinion on selfies? Do you find them annoying or do you love to take them?

[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2721975/Couple-plunged-death-cliff-young-children-tried-selfie.html

[2] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/high-times-meet-the-russian-kids-who-take-the-worlds-riskiest-photos-20140506#ixzz49bzKgDUl