Does Prince Harry’s Selfie Snub Mark The Beginning Of The End Of This Terrible Trend?

Social media thrives upon them, narcissists are addicted to them, Kim Kardashian has made a career out of them and Prince Harry just refused to have one taken with an Australian fan.

Can you guess what it is yet? We’re talking about selfies, and now that they’ve officially received the royal seal of disapproval are these mindless tributes to self and adoration of the individual to be consigned to the rubbish bin of history, earmarked “bizarre trends of the 21st century!”

Probably not but Prince Harry’s outright rejection of an Australian fan’s selfie request has not only earned praise from critics but could be a long overdue omen that the tide is finally turning against the narcissistic nightmare which stalks this mortal coil under the guise of selfie.

As anyone who has ever asked themselves “Who am I? “Where am I?” and “Why do I feel this way?” knows, the concept of self, self-awareness, self-knowledge, and self-confidence, are all high and mighty ideals which serve to elevate and refine our consciousness and understanding of self and its role in the universe.

The noble pursuit of such lofty attributes pretty much runs into a black hole when one is presented with the concept of the selfie. The art of holding a camera against your face like a mirror and pulling the sort of facial expression that suggests to the world that you’re either experiencing painful bowel movements or suffering from the side-effects of a severely strong anti-psychotic drug represents a gigantic evolutionary leap backwards into the primordial swamp of murk and much from which the first slug oozed its way into a waiting world.

The Guardian’s art critic Jonathan Jones praised Prince Harry’s actions and even went as far to call the common selfie an attack on the moral self.

“Selfies deny and erase a fundamental human self-consciousness. We are in danger of losing our sense of awkwardness, embarrassment, of being an individual. The selfie is actually an attack on the moral self.”

Although Prince Harry might agree with such sentiments the young Prince is a man of action and not know for being particularly articulate, but he pretty much summed up his feelings about the dreaded selfie at the start of his four-week military tour in Australia when a fan asked Harry for a shared selfie the young royal snapped.

“No, I hate selfies!”

NY Daily News reports that the girl and her friends laugh at first, thinking the mischievous Prince is making but a royal jest, but the growing realization that their selfie request has been turned down dawns on them when Prince Harry elaborates on his hatred for selfies.

“Seriously, you need to get out of it, I know you’re young, but selfies are bad. Just take a normal photograph.”

Words to the wise Harry, words to the wise.