Selfies have become people’s go-to when it comes to trying to express themselves online. It's quick and instantaneous—we just need to snap a photo on our phone, slap on some filters and post them on social media. And when the likes and comments flood in, it's instant gratification. But there's an art behind creating the perfect selfie. In fact, if we Google the phrase "selfie tutorial," we'd end up with millions of search results that aim to educate people on how to take the perfect selfie. Even with millions of answers, it seems many people are still having a hard time mastering their selfie game.
Here, we have 15 people who might need some pointers on how to take a selfie, given their obvious lack of skills. In fact, their selfies are so bad that they really shouldn't be allowed to take selfies ever again.
15 Son…?
Raising teenagers is always tough. And it’s even tougher when they are already going through their rebellious phase. Oftentimes, parents forget all the crazy stuff they did back in the day when they themselves were teens and are flabbergasted to find their children doing some zany, questionable things that their generation will never understand.
The worst part is having to walk into their teen's bedroom to remind them to do their chores or homework, only to find them doing odd things like posing for a selfie when no one else is around. And when we say posing for a selfie, we mean not in a general way that most people do. This dad in the photo had that exact experience with his son. He was dumbfounded when he walked into the room to find his son posing in front of the camera with a weird mask on his face, a cap and a hoodie—concealing his identity.
It is quite worrisome to see someone taking pictures of himself all covered up to the point of being unidentified. The reason why this picture was even taken is beyond comprehension. We can really see the look of disappointment and concern on the dad’s face.
14 The fake sleeper
More often than not, we can count on the Internet to call out someone’s bluff—whether it’s by doing a quick reverse image search, doing a Google search or simply investigating the photo or post in question. In this era of computers and smartphones, many people have developed a keen eye that allows them to point out the lies and deceit, then call out false information when they see it. And it’s especially true for people who like detective shows, like Sherlock.
It’s almost like people have learned to become private investigators without anyone teaching them the tricks.
It can get quite frightening, really. But not if we're an honest person who doesn’t bluff. This man who documented his travels on Instagram is obviously the type who does stretch the truth. He posted a photo of what looked like the view from the airplane window, a selfie showing he didn't have anyone accompanying him on the trip and then a photo of him "sleeping." Commenters obviously had to ask: "Who took a pic of [him] sleeping?" given that he was clearly traveling alone. He made an excuse, saying the person in front of him took the photo. Who would do that on a plane?
13 Miss. Piggy
When taking selfies, the general rule is to make sure you don't have anything in the background or in the photo that will prevent the viewer from looking at the main subject, which is, of course, you. But in some cases, people tend to forget that there's quite a lot going on in their surroundings when taking a selfie, regardless of whether they're taking it from the comforts of their own bathroom or bedroom. This young lady took a mirror photo of herself in her bathroom and there's totally nothing out of the ordinary here.
However, it's what's in her surroundings that's totally distracting us from the main subject. Her selfie captured a mirror reflection that hilariously distorted her face to make her look like Miss. Piggy. And that’s not all—there’s more. If you look more closely at the round mirror in the bottom left corner of the photo, you’ll see that there’s some kind of dirt or water trail on the mirror that looks kind of like snot. So, not only does she look like Miss. Piggy, she also looks like a Miss. Piggy who’s down with a cold and too sick to wipe the snot off her face. Yikes.
12 For your safety
When traveling, whether locally or internationally, people tend to document every single experience—from eating food that’s unique to the location, the different important and historical buildings and structures to even the modes of transportation that that specific location has (ever heard of the tuk-tuk from Bangkok, Thailand?). You have to admit it—it’s incredibly fun to take photos of literally everything when we’re traveling, especially if we have a large following on social media. Just think about all the photos we can post to brag about our vacation.
Posting tons of photos provide more exposure and as they say, any publicity is good publicity.
But maybe not in the case of this photo. This man on a plane took it upon himself to document his experience in a depressurized cabin. Depressurization usually happens when there's an air leak on the plane or technical malfunction that causes the plane to have an emergency landing. In this case, it looks like there is some serious trouble in the aircraft, as all passengers have been asked to put on their oxygen masks. The only good thing here is that this all most likely ended well and no one was hurt, as this man was able to post his selfie online.
11 This prom is a twister
We have to be honest, there is quite a lot going on in this photo so let's break it down. First and foremost, without looking at the caption and merely focusing on what you see first, this is a selfie by a teen who looks like she's about to go to prom. We can guess that much, because her makeup and outfit are on point and she does look really pretty despite that questionable facial expression she has on.
Now, let’s start to inspect the elements in the background of her selfie. Looking at the upper left corner of the selfie, we see what looks like a tornado and from where she’s standing, we can all agree that this is a big one that's not even really too far away from where she is. Now, let’s focus on her caption in which she wrote, "Selfie featuring Tornado #prom2k16.” This sounds like she truly wanted to document the coincidental tornado that hit her town on the day of her prom. It’s rather peculiar in our opinion because if it were us, we’d be running for our lives instead of taking a prom-slash-tornado selfie. Even the man behind her is taking a photo of said tornado. Crayyyy.
10 Snooping
Taking selfies is often best done in the privacy of one's room or somewhere no one else will see us, especially if the purpose of taking these photos is to show off some skin or to capture ourselves in some explicit situations. Of course, if we’re only taking selfies with friends, then it can be done in public as long as our poses aren’t offensive in any way (like the slant-eye pose that Asians find offensive).
In fact, it’s even encouraged to take as many selfies as we can with our family members or friends when we’re traveling or spending some quality time together. But for those who are into taking selfies that are in no way conservative or appropriate, it’s best to only take selfies in their own bedroom, far from the prying eyes of anyone else. As we can see in this photo, that doesn't always work out. It definitely didn't for this young lady, who is completely and confidently rocking her selfie pose and pulling her dress up to show off her thighs. We love her confidence, but there’s an appropriate time and place for taking such selfies. Since she obviously “YOLO”-ed this, she, unfortunately, was caught in the act of her less-than-appropriate selfie-taking.
9 It’s Hannah Montana time
Some selfies are so questionable that the only conclusion you'll arrive at is that the person taking it was probably not in the best state of mind at the time the photo was captured. Perhaps they were intoxicated or maybe they just had their wisdom tooth taken out at the dentist—we all know what that could do to you. Or, they could just have been really bored and decided to snap a photo of something people wouldn’t normally take a photo of. You know, just to be different.
And when it comes to being different, this kid who snapped a mirror photo takes the cake.
The kid, whose sunglasses game is actually pretty on point, snapped this rather eccentric selfie in their bathroom. They’re wearing what looks like some sweats and a comfy t-shirt, indicative of the fact that they may be going to bed soon. They’ve also got their pink Hello Kitty blanket wrapped around them like a cape and they have on some sunglasses and a head accessory to keep their tresses at bay. To add a finishing touch to their look, they have included a large Hannah Montana clock, which they’re carrying around like a purse. They must be a big fan.
8 How to eat a banana
One of the primary rules of taking a selfie is to make sure that no one is watching. You wouldn’t want them to document you in the process of taking a rather questionable photo of yourself. That would be very embarrassing, don’t you think? And what’s worse is that, once it’s documented and then later uploaded to the Internet, it has a possibility of going viral. Which means that it could potentially become a meme. Which means that you could potentially become famous for an embarrassing act you wish you’d never done. You don’t want that to happen to you, right?
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened with this lady. She was clearly at her office desk when she took this very mind-boggling photo of herself in which she is shoving a rather big banana into her mouth. The most questionable part here is, why would she shove the banana down her throat? And why is she even documenting this in the first place? Is this supposed to be one of those “suggestive” photos? Is she sending this to her significant other? It seems like there’s no way this selfie has no less-than-appropriate innuendo involved. Now, we’re wondering how she reacted when she saw this photo.
7 Statue of Eiffel
Travel selfies are among the most common types of selfies. One of the obvious reasons for this is that many of us have an innate desire to show off what we’ve been up to in our lives on social media. And that includes all the interesting (and even non-interesting) places we’ve been to. Another reason is that traveling has become a more popular thing to do in recent years. Probably even the most popular history has ever seen. For some, it’s a status symbol, and for others, it’s simply a way of life. For this lady, it’s probably neither.
Because it seems she doesn’t care, as she didn’t even realize she was in fact in Paris and not in New York.
You would think that after seeing photos of popular tourist destinations over and over again, everyone would have known all of them by heart by now, including their names and where they’re located. But that’s not the case at all. Even though this lady is standing right in front of the Eiffel Tower, she captioned her selfie with “Selfie with the Statue of Liberty.” Maybe she was experiencing jet lag and just needed more time to process information. Or perhaps she was a total prankster and she got all of us fooled.
6 This wasn’t on purpose at all
You have to admit, taking selfies is kind of entertaining. It’s like one of the best things to do when you have to do a lot of waiting, like when you’re stuck in traffic or when you’re in a very long, boring queue. It can even be a fun thing to do when you are at home and literally have no idea what to do with yourself. Surely we aren’t the only ones here who have taken a couple hundred selfies in mostly the same angles to pass the time or entertain ourselves. But if we’re going to take selfies for the purpose of posting them, we might as well be honest about it. Because there are people on the Internet who make it their mission to call out liars on social media.
Take the case of this lady, for example. She posted her car selfie on Instagram saying, "I really didn't mean to post this smh but whatever good morning." She was immediately called out by a friend (frenemy?) who commented, in all caps, that there were about five steps in order to actually post a photo on Instagram, calling her bluff on not meaning to post it as if it was a total accident.
5 She’s acting a bit off
It's all fun and games until someone gets caught taking a really bad selfie. And by bad, we don’t mean those selfies that are actually pretty good except for some minor problematic elements in the background. Again, taking selfies is often best done in the privacy of one's home or somewhere you can be alone. All those embarrassing selfies we see on a daily basis should be a good enough reminder that taking selfies in public is not a very good idea. Someone could easily and quickly take a photo of us making such silly faces or poses and then post it on the Internet.
Just like what happened with this lady who will forever be known as the girl who made this face.
She is in what looks like a classroom or study hall with her friend or maybe classmate when she decides that school is driving her nuts. So she takes a selfie of her silly facial expression. She doesn’t even have the faintest idea that she is being photographed by someone else in the room. The best part is that the guy next to her looks like even he’s questioning her life choices, given the bewildered expression on his face that seems to say, "What are you even doing, Karen?"
4 I love grandma!
We understand that love transcends age. As long as neither of the two parties is a minor, they can still be together even if there is a huge age gap between them. Just think of your average May-December romance where one of the parties is 20 to 30 years older than the other. Although it’s quite unconventional, we don’t see anything wrong with it. In fact, we encourage it if it’s what would make people happy. But this seemingly handsome young man should really rethink his selfie choices.
On this fateful day, he decided to show the world just how much he loved this older lady by taking a selfie with her. The problem is, she turns out to be his grandmother and they were this close to making out. The first photo was great as it perfectly matched his caption that explained how he saw his grandmother: a second mom, teacher, cook and friend. But everything went south when he decided to post a second photo that shows them in a rather explicit situation. Don't get us wrong, it's perfectly fine to kiss your grandmother, but these two were totally into the kiss with their eyes closed and everything. Not so innocent, after all.
3 Mr. Camel strikes
Animal selfies are definitely one of the most precious selfies anyone can take. Animal lovers believe that these cute creatures that make our world a better place deserve being included in our selfies. That is why it’s common to find people taking selfies with a cute animal or two—or even more—and then later posting them on their social media accounts for all their followers to see. If you go to a zoo these days, you’ll see that everyone’s taking animal selfies.
But just like celebrities, animals can become annoyed by the constant attention.
And they don't think twice to show this. They’re not like people who most of the time hold their feelings back because they’re afraid of confrontation or being judged wrongly. Animals don’t worry about their reputation—they only do whatever it is that they want. Which is why we shouldn’t bother them too much for our own entertainment. We need to give them the space they require. And if we want to take selfies with them, we should definitely make sure to turn the flash off. If we don’t do it right, we’ll end up like this person who was bitten by a very annoyed camel.
2 Camper danger
Bears are one of the most threatening animals on the planet. Not only can they run really fast but they’re also pretty good climbers. So, if a bear decided to attack you, climbing a tree wouldn’t really help you all that much. That means it’s important that we avoid any kind of interaction with them at all costs. They’re wild animals—and wild animals aren’t something you can easily and safely approach like domesticated dogs and cats. Even though bears have been repeatedly portrayed as cute and cuddly. It’s not safe to get near bears, period.
But it seems this kid didn’t get the memo, as he literally stopped in his tracks to take this rather worrisome selfie with a black bear in the background. And the black bear isn’t even really busy doing something—it’s looking straight at the camera. It’s common sense to avoid bears, but perhaps common sense isn’t so common. We can only hope this kid didn’t end up getting attacked by the bear, or that would’ve been a horrific tragedy. Folks, if you have this annoying desire to take a selfie with a bear, just go to the zoo and do it there. Don’t risk your life doing it in the wild.
1 Decency not found
In this article, we have seen selfies we believe should not have been taken in the first place. Some moments are better left hidden from the world, but they still make it to the Internet no thanks to our smartphones and our acquired (or innate) desire to show off literally everything that’s going on with us to our followers. But we guess we should be grateful too because now we have all these odd, questionable selfies to feast our eyes on. Unfortunately, some of them go way over the top.
Like this selfie, taken by this couple who should never ever be allowed to take a selfie again.
And let's be clear here: we're not judging them because they're the same gender. In fact, we celebrate all pairings no matter the parties' genders. Our problem with this selfie is that it's extremely disrespectful because they took a selfie with a sleeping homeless man in the background and were blatantly making fun of him not just in the image, but also through their caption. Regardless of a person's background or socio-economic status, we should still treat them right, especially if they have done nothing wrong to us. We sincerely hope this couple eventually realizes their mistake and corrects it.
References: komando.com, komando.com