When Visiting Sacred Sites, Think Before Taking Selfies.
The proliferation of selfies has caused a rift in society, raising a surprising number of issues regarding gender, class, age, religion, and race. Wired’s Jason Parham explores some of these in his “When Selfies Become Blasphemous” essay on how to take selfies in sacred or serious places such as mosques and art installations.
Parham admits that the selfie allows you to “enter a world that has done everything in its power to destroy you.” But while attending the Hassan II Mosque in Morocco, he felt uncomfortable with many other tourists taking selfies when locals went to prayer, and noticed that many of the locals seemed to feel the same way, “pointing and commenting on the growing spectacle of solipsism. “
While opinions vary widely, those who look down on selfies in sacred locations often refer to them on the Internet. When someone decides that your selfie is not up to your taste, the gray area disappears. Even if you think you’re not offending, you may end up in a series of Photoshop graphic photographs of the Holocaust, in a gruesome local blog post, or on BuzzFeed’s list of regrettable selfies (most of which have been removed due to shame). … If you’re lucky, you can explain yourself with ABC News . If you’re Beyoncé, you can provoke a thoughtful essay in The New Republic .
While some of the above cases are clearly out of scope (a Holocaust memorial is not the right place to display your lithe figure ), it is also reductive to assume that everyone who takes a selfie is narcissistic or disrespectful. As Brian Lufkin of Gizmodo and Dodai Stewart of Jezebel have noted , people not only take selfies in front of someone else’s tragedy, but also in front of their own tormenting moments. There are many legitimate reasons: sometimes to establish yourself in power during a crisis, sometimes to emotionally process a tragedy, sometimes to tell friends and family that you have been through it.
Remember that not all of this will go to outsiders caught in your photos. And this does not give you the opportunity to violate someone’s sacred space. Therefore, before taking pictures at a memorial or place of worship, consider how it will affect the people around you. If you are unsure, ask a site representative. And if you take the risk, be prepared to explain yourself online.