Selfie Etiquette for the Selfie-Obsessed Generation
“I’ve never taken a selfie and I don’t plan to start now,” Anna Wintour says in a recent video on Vogue.com. Most of the rest of us, however, snap one anywhere we want, with whomever we want (especially if they’re famous—see the recent film “Aspirational” starring Kirsten Dunst, where two women pose with the actress without even bothering to ask if she’s cool with it).
What is it about turning the lens on ourselves that makes us forget our manners? “Ultimately, ‘selfie’ is short for self-centered or self-absorbed,” says Crystal L. Bailey, director of The Etiquette Institute of Washington in Washington, D.C. “Etiquette at its root is about considering others first. It’s rare that these two, ‘selfies’ and etiquette, are able co-exist.”
Fittingly, the new television show “Selfie,” which premieres tonight, is based on the plot of “Pygmalion.” One assumes the female lead, the fame-and-selfie-obsessed Eliza Dooley, needs as much refinement as the original Eliza Doolittle did. Early reviews do say that her endless pop culture references via hashtags, slang and “abbrevs” are maddening but also telling. We might not be able to escape our social media-obsessed, tweeting, gramming, narcissistic culture but perhaps we can learn to be a little more polite in the way we navigate through it. So here are few lessons to live by.
The biggest selfie foul, Bailey says, is where we take them. She cites portraits at funerals or in emergency rooms. There were reports that Joan Rivers’ doctor took one while he was operating on her, and even President Obama got scolded by etiquette experts (as well as first lady Michele) for taking one at Nelson Mandela’s memorial with the Danish Prime Minister Helle-Thorning Schmidt and British Prime Minister David Cameron. “Any place where someone is unconscious or not moving is not the place for selfies,” she says. (Interestingly, another location off limits: the voting booth. In Bangalore, India, the government recently banned enthusiatic voters from taking selfies inside the booth but allowed them to display their inked fingers afterwards.)
What’s less offensive but still tacky, Bailey says, is taking the shot in a bathroom. “Whether you’re getting dressed, or at a restaurant or club, bathrooms should be off limits for any picture taking,” she says. “No one wants to see a toilet or stall in the background.”
You might think you look fresh and bright-eyed in the morning but Bailey thinks otherwise. Don’t get out your smartphone in bed, either—#iwokeuplikethis is impolite. “The stars do that all the time, but there’s no one I want to see first thing in morning,” Bailey says. “I don’t even want to look in the mirror first thing in the morning.”
She also advises you post a selfie no more than once a week—and on no more than one social network. Also, be aware of your expression: Stay away from anything that telegraphs “over it.” “The work meeting selfie, where you show how bored you are, is amazing to me,” she says. “That’s not what you want your boss to see.” And neither do your co-workers who might be too busy toiling away while you gaze at your phone.
If in doubt, Bailey suggest using a general personal standard, such as not taking a shot you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the newspaper. Or, Bailey says, “If you wouldn’t want your grandma to see it, no one should.”
