The selfie wars: To snap or not to snap is the burning travel question

By Mal Chenu

Self-portraiture has always been highly regarded. Rembrandt, da Vinci, van Dyck, Monet, Cezanne, Picasso, Dali, Warhol and the monobrowed Frida Kahlo were all enthusiastic exponents. In 1998, one of Vincent van Gogh's early selfies sold for $US72 million, and his 1889 oil on canvas Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear is a masterpiece of narcissistic self-harm.

Who's to say a selfie entitled "Me 'n me mates at the Rotto pub with grinning quokka" won't someday be studied for its figurative merit and examined as a paradigm-shifting archetype of early 21st-century high art?

"Here we see one of the definitive exemplars of the Selfieism movement. A cleverly composed and candid nod to the eclecticism of the genre, note how the artist's Swan Lager tank top and double bung thongs capture a surrealist aesthetic to counterpoint the enigmatic smile of the diminutive marsupial."

As every gen Z worth their salted caramel knows, if you don't photograph your smashed avo with kale and chia seeds and post it on Instagram, did you really have it? This is an even greater conundrum when dining at the Tree Falls in the Forest Cafe. Well, it's the same with holidays.

Did you really go to the Leaning Tower of Pisa if there's no pictorial proof of you pretending to prop it up? Did you really hike the Great Wall of China, relax beside the reclining Buddha, hot-air balloon over Cappadocia and sip a 25-euro bellini in Piazza San Marco?

And in the quokka vein, did you really ride a Moroccan camel in Tunisia, smooch Goofy at Disneyland, cuddle a llama at Machu Picchu, party with penguins in Antarctica or swim with whale sharks in the Galapagos?

As American writer Susan Sontag put it in her book On Photography: "To collect photographs is to collect the world." From the daguerreotype to the four-lens Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone, travellers have been capturing their special moments since Robert Cornelius took the first photographic selfie in 1839. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin snapped the ultimate travel selfie aboard Gemini 12 in 1966 with Earth in the background.

Today, the selfie is ubiquitous. Enhancements such as the selfie stick, the tripod, the Go-Pro, filters, mirrors and the duck lips pose have elevated it to an art form. Apps and websites are devoted to developing your selfie style, posting your pics and providing advice on reaching the pinnacle of humanity - becoming an influencer.

Selfies are a crucial component of the travel experience. You are producing posterity. #Sure, #you #may #start #hashtagging #every #word #you #type, but it's worth it to have these pics forever. And just imagine, if you didn't take that selfie this morning, how would future generations ever know what comprised the hotel breakfast buffet?!?

By Amy Cooper

I've been lucky enough to witness some of the world's wonders: Everest, the Acropolis, Stonehenge, the Mona Lisa, the Aurora Borealis. Lions up close in the African wild, whale calves frolicking in the Whitsundays. And at no point among these splendours have I ever thought: "You know what would improve this view? Half my face."

Nor have I blocked traffic with my portable changing cubicle for selfie outfits in a beleaguered leaf-tourism Vermont village, trampled a five-year-old in Yellowstone Park while jostling for a bison selfie or applied a perky halo n' wings filter for my gal pal shot ... in front of the Auschwitz Museum.

But others have. And these affronts are merely the tip of a global iceberg upon which some nincompoop is probably balanced right now, wearing only a thong and a selfie stick.

Travelling with a smartphone camera instead of a brain or heart is one of our era's most noxious scourges. Dubbed "meme tourism", it's driven by likes, algorithms, viral trends and their useful idiots who scout locations on social media, then swarm upon them like bedbugs on a backpacker to score the same trophy photo. Nothing makes me fluorescent with fury quite like finding a beautiful sight obscured and immiserated by a thicket of selfie sticks attached to soulless dunces working through their f***wit list. Performing their travel, not living it. Meme tourists have been blamed for overtourism - and worse. This year, UNSW researchers recommended governments treat selfie-related harm as a public health issue. But you can't legislate for imbecility, as the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service learned after imploring: "Dear tourists ... it's time for you to start respecting yourself. So, stop making stupid and dangerous selfies. Thank you." That was 2016, and nobody's listened.

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Meme tourists - or rather, maim tourists - have since plummeted from trains, bridges, boats and cliffs; burned, exploded and electrocuted themselves. Last year in Venice, a gondolier-load of Chinese tourists capsized their vessel by refusing to sit down and stop taking selfies. In 2022, an American tourist tumbled into the crater of Mount Vesuvius while taking a selfie. Even if you're a more civilised snapper, you might as well not bother. Research into the "photo-taking impairment effect" has shown that when you photograph something rather than just observe, you remember it less. I'm sure that's true. Some of my most enduring sensory memories are from a Sicily trip, after I lost my camera. Etna's flaming plumes, Taormina's cascading cliffs and the earthy, volcanic rosso wines ... all still crystal clear, because I could truly immerse.

It's hard to decouple from our devices. I struggle, too. But to really see a place, you need to look with your eyes, not a screen.