Do we need a selfie stick in 2015?

So finally back at work. Let’s start the blog in its new style. As you might have noticed the most integral discussion on the blog will be the one about fashion icons, featuring all the aspects from how fashion icons emerge, change our lives and get copied to how they stay or fade away. As I consider 2015 to be a year in which one of the major discussions will be tech I want to dedicate my first post of the year to the „selfie stick“, you know the extendable rope, which holds your handy while taking a selfie or other picture with your mobile phone?

selfie stick in 2015

Elizabeth von Guttman and Alexia Niedzielski attending Dior pre-fall 2015 presentation in Tokyo in December 2014. (picture credentials: http://www.style.com/slideshows/fashion-shows/pre-fall-2015/christian-dior/front-row/4)

Since summer 2014 I had started to recognize a growing number of tourists taking pictures of themselves with their mobile phone attached to these sticks. Honestly, my feelings were ambivalent. On the one hand I considered it as slightly weird, but on the other I felt it quite innovative as it eliminates the facial distortion in the classic selfie.

In July 2014 an article in vogue caught my attention. It was entitled „The #SelfieStick may be the most shameless fashion accessory ever“. Around November 2014 selfie sticks arrived at two of Paris most acclaimed concept stores Colette and Montaigne Market. And than Elizabeth von Guttman and Alexia Niedzielski showed up with a selfie stick on the red carpet at the Dior pre-fall 2015 presentation in Tokyo. Finally Daily mail reported that the selfie stick is the must have gift for Christmas in Britain.

OK, at the end of 2014 I had to accept, even if its weird the selfie stick will be something we have to consider in 2015. So where does the selfie stick come from? According to CNN it started to develop in Indonesia in the midde of 2013 and finally took off in Malaysia at the beginning of 2014.

So does a selfie stick really change our life for the better? Well basically I feel that the pleasure of taking pictures with your mobile lies in the fact that you do not have to carry a lot of additional camera equipment with you, or at least thats what I love the most about it! Taking a selfie I personally love the struggeling and trying to come together as close as possible and finding the right angle to have everyone in the pic including a nice background – this is part of the fun for me. With the selfie stick a big advantage surely is that you have a broader spectrum of options for both selfies and other pictures. You eliminate the need to ask strangers to take your picture. However it also means that you have to carry an additional device all the day and slightly run the risk of making a fool of yourself while using the device.

Whats your opinion? Do you already own a selfie stick? Do you like taking pictures with a stick or do you still prefer the good old traditional selfie?