THE next time you think of bringing along a selfie stick to a museum or venues featuring science, history and the creative arts, think twice because you may just have to leave the stick at the door.
The selfie stick, which came into fashion just a couple of years back, is a must-have accessory for selfie-addicts. Yes, those who go around taking photographs of themselves every five steps that they take.
Going to the Kuching Waterfront? Must take a selfie! Walk five steps to the left of the cannons? Must take a selfie! Notice a colourful sampan behind you? Reach out for the selfie stick and take those darned photos of yourself with the sampan from every angle!
Eye bet you can tell that selfies are not the Eye’s favourite thing. Call me old school, but thanks to smartphones, the true art of photography has been, let’s just say, degraded. But anyway, those selfie sticks have raised the ire of not only the Eye but also other old school establishments as well.
In France, the 17th century Chateau de Versailles has banned selfie sticks in the interest of the artwork, historical pieces and other visitors to the palace.
Similarly, Britain’s National Gallery also announced a ban on selfie sticks citing the need to protect their art displays and respect other visitors.
Eye find visitors going around with selfie sticks obnoxious. Imagine viewing an expensive piece of art and suddenly, there is this smartphone mounted at the end of a stick intruding your space.
The very space that you are in, admiring an intricate or original work of art that evokes the senses, thoughts and perhaps even memories.
As for museums, no one should take photographs, unless given special permission to do so. Museum displays, especially those in natural history museums are often very old and can be sensitive to flash lights.
Oh, did Eye mention that Eye was once accidentally struck by a selfie stick? Happened right here at the Kuching Waterfront. A bunch of giggly girlie girls were being vain and swinging the selfie stick in all directions trying to get their ‘best angles’, oblivious to others around them.
It is no wonder that highly regarded historical and cultural institutions across the globe are starting to impose bans on selfie sticks. The things just aren’t safe.
What if some unscrupulous parties wanted to carry out a heist and found ways to disguise their tools and weapons as selfie sticks?
The Smithsonian, an institution with 19 museums and galleries, has also announced a ban on the sticks along with dozens more American, Australian, British and Canadian venues. Even the Chi Lin Nunnery in Hong Kong has banned the sticks, citing the need for respect for places of high regard.
Well, the list of organisations banning the selfie stick is growing by the day. And it is about time that similar institutions in Malaysia do the same, if they have not already banned cameras in the first place.
Moving along, what does coincidence and fate have to do with selfie sticks as the title of this piece suggests? Nothing.
Coincidence and fate are matters of an entirely different topic, which came about because a friend recently experienced a string of related coincidences over the past two weeks.
She could not help but feel ‘Itok’ as we say in Bahasa Sarawak, meaning that she just couldn’t shake off the thought and feeling that these string of coincidences were more than, well, coincidences.
So she posed two questions to the Eye – “What is the difference between coincidence and fate? How do I know if these happenings which involved the same person is actually fate or merely just coincidence?”
Certainly food for thought there. Without going too deep into a scientific, theological or psychological analysis, let’s just try to explain this simply as a layman.
Coincidence is probably what is preferred by those who believe that there is a scientific solution to every question. They would probably whip up a mathematical formula for probability and explain from there. Fate on the other hand, Eye believe has more to do with an occurrence or a series of events in a person’s life that eventually leads to a change in his or her life.
Fate, for people of different faiths is often referred to as destiny. A coincidence is merely a once-off event that happened.
Make sense?
For this friend, the Eye really doesn’t have a definite answer. Eye suppose if the string of events eventually leads to some form of change in her life, then we could call it fate. And if you believe, the Almighty works in mysterious ways.
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