The above photo was taken in a coffee shop restroom. It’s a ridiculously unremarkable selfie.
I hate selfies. I really hate them. In fact, from this point on I’m officially changing the term from “selfie” to”self-indulgent bullshit camouflaged as a chance to seek opinions on a new hat.” I’m not sure if people have grown more needy as the decades have passed, but we certainly live in the greatest me-me-me-me era in human history. Speaking of which, did you read my last blog post? It was amazing.
Wait. I digress. Selfies are nonsense, so much so that I was shocked (shocked!) two weeks ago when Stanley Pearlman, my dad, e-mailed me a photo of him alongside my mom, accompanied by the line, “Our first selfie!” I was confused. Horrified. Perplexed. Even Mom and Dad are doing selfies now? Had they—two of the most modest people I know—succumbed to the societal need to be seen, then seen again and again and again? Was there no escape from 2014: The Year of the Narcissist?
I called Dad a few days later, complimented him on the blurry, 78-degree photo. He laughed.
“I’ll be honest,” he said, “we were trying to take a picture of something with the phone, and we accidentally had it backward.”
Praise Jesus.
