The selfie craze is an interesting twist to our modern culture. In the old days, we used to knock on our neighbor's door, sit down, have some coffee and talk. Now, we sit remotely in our tees and underwear in our living rooms chatting with people around the world and then trying to add some humanity to the experience by sending an image of our face to give it that real-world flavor.
Let's face it, with the Internet and YouTube, everyone can be a star!
The dark side of selfies, however, has been the risk people take to capture themselves in dangerous locations and situations. We are so obsessed with capturing every moment of our lives for the strangers behind their computer screens around the world, that we forget to have experiences, we just want to prove we had the experiences.
There have been casualties in the desire to capture a selfie in a place where one should keep their wits and attention focused. This is the standing equivalent of those who text while driving and crash.
Recently, a man fell from the cliff at Machu Pichu while posing for a photo. This 51-year-old German tourist sneaked into a restricted area. He asked a friend to take a picture of him atop the cliff and then proceeded to lose his balance and fall 130 feet to his death.
One musician crashed taking a selfie while he drove his motorcycle.
A private pilot died taking selfies while flying.
One adolescent held a gun to his chin and it went off, killing him. This is not that uncommon. Some people thought they had no bullets, thought they could use a rubber bullet, and only found that it was their last lesson.
Numerous people climbed to precarious areas and fell to their deaths.
Lots of people have died trying to climb on trains to take pics and being electrocuted.
Standing up to pose in a small boat, a photographer overturned the boat and drowned.
Daredevils have died often while trying to capture their stupidity.
There are plenty of reports of people doing selfies during shark attacks or prodding wild animals like rattlesnakes. This also includes idiocy while running with the bulls in Spain.
Plenty have tried to climb atop of skyscrapers to learn the hard way.
Others have posed on rocks at the ocean with their back to the water.
Sadly a bunch of people on a beach in Argentina passed a dolphin around to pose for selfies with it, only to have it die.
A really idiotic businessman in China tried to pose for selfies with animals and was drowned by a walrus.
There is no doubt that the younger generation are more vulnerable to trying to win respect and celebrity by hare-brained stunts, but in the case of death by selfies, it would seem to be a natural Darwinian Law at work.
The country with the most selfies before death? India
This 17-year-old russian girl fell off a bridge and was electrocuted by a cable she fell on.
More info:
10 photos taken before death
A recent Grand Canyon one
Darwin
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