Sitting on the train yesterday, I observed a couple with their young son of about two-years old operating a selfie-stick. Such a bizzare contraption. I remember first seeing them during a trip to Europe in 2012 and being simultaneously intrigued and repelled by the idea of it.

Practically, the selfie-stick is a smart way of solving the issue of taking bad selfies. If we look at it from another angle, it’s evidence of technology being shaped by our usages. The phone camera was likely not invented for the purpose of taking photos of oneself, until someone turned their phone around one day and did exactly that. Technology responded to this by creating a phone camera that, using a built-in app function, can be reversed to reflect the image of the user. The selfie stick takes this concept one step further, allowing us to actually craft and refine these images to a point where it’s ‘acceptable’ for public viewing.

Of course, the self-timer on digital cameras came in before all of this. But there’s something about being able to see the image while it’s being taken, that process of instant curation, that marks the difference.

I’m still not sure where I sit on the selfie stick. The National Gallery in the UK sure finds them obnoxious…