Staff picks: The worst places to use a selfie stick

This week, The Bark staff attempts a nearly impossible staff pick, naming one of the worst places to use a selfie stick. I call this impossible because this is a shameful social practice and should never be used anywhere unless you’re zip-lining through the Amazon Rainforest.

Church. I hate the invention. Of the selfie stick, not church. Because we really needed people to be more self-absorbed. I like church a lot, though. [Taylor A. Johnson]

Imagine, you’re at Chick-Fil-a. You’re next in line to get your food. Then all of a sudden the person in front of you pulls out a selfie stick and proceeds to take selfies until they capture the “perfect” one. All you want are your nuggets and Chick-Fil-a sauce, but you are halted due to the use of this horrid invention. [Zoey Line]

Picture this: you’re getting a haircut and you see the person next to you, who is also getting a haircut, pulls out a selfie stick and proceeds to take several pictures of themselves. This is extremely annoying to the person cutting their hair, and you would think that they’d at least wait until after their hair was cut to take selfies, right? [Michael Lepard]

So, you’re a well-respected, successful judge that has just recently been to visit your grandchildren; they show you this new-fangled thing called a selfie stick. You decide to use it for the first time as you swear in the next President of the United States. An unfortunate choice considering Secret Service has now just broken your arm, and you are in disgrace all because you tried to take a mediocre picture from a horrid angle. [Kelsey Kinzer]

So you’re scrolling through Instagram and you come across a photo of one of your friends and her great-aunt. “Aw,” you think, “how nice.” Until you read the caption. “At my great aunt’s funeral! #sosad #selfiestick”  Yeah, you probably need to get better friends. [Mackenzie Lee]

Everywhere. [Tyler Hotz]

Imagine you are a doctor fresh out of med school and that you are about to perform your first major surgery. In your opinion, nothing says “medical professional” more than whipping out your selfie stick and snapping a picture with your first patient, mid-surgery. Hopefully, the fact that you are now a joke amongst your profession, and will likely never be trusted with a surgery again, was worth the 100 likes you got on Instagram. [Tori Lafon]

Cleaning 6-month-old grime out of someone’s teeth cannot be the highlight of a dental hygienist’s day. Now, add a patient with a selfie stick to the picture and the whole situation turns into a disaster. We don’t need to see your gummy smile on Instagram. [Danielle Fannon]

The worst place to bring a selfie stick has to be the first day of college class. If a professor sees you with one of those on the first day, then the rest of the semester will not be fun. Selfie sticks are not really acceptable anywhere, but the first day of college class would be one of the worst places. [Wyeth Wilson]

Hopefully it is self-evident that bringing a selfie stick to a job interview is just a really bad idea. The only viable excuse (if any) would be if you are suffering from serious head trauma. If you don’t fall under either of those categories, you should probably put that picture on your fridge as a friendly yet candid reminder of how not to live your life. [Maggie Kimber]

It should be an unspoken social rule that selfie sticks should never be allowed in public especially at school when people are not in the mood to look cute or be happy. School hall ways are never an acceptable place to do anything except walk and occasionally stop to chat with friends. No one wants to be in your selfie at 8:30 a.m. Just stop. [Katie Matthews]