Selfie Sticks Banned At The Emmy Awards Due To ‘Safety Concerns’ After Disney
Selfie sticks haven’t been having the best press lately. After being banned at Disneyland, selfie sticks won’t be popping up at tonight’s Emmy Awards, either.
The revelation that the The Emmys 2015 red carpet, ceremony, and ball are going to be selfie stick-free comes via a tweet by New York Magazine correspondent Frank Rich, Deadline reports.
End of a very brief era. #Emmys pic.twitter.com/EwZRySrPOQ
— Frank Rich (@frankrichny) September 20, 2015
Note the consequences if you decide to ignore the ban.
“Should you bring them you will be asked to turn them over to security or return them to your vehichle.”
This is serious!
With this notice, The Emmys joins a growing list of events and locations that have banned the selfie stick. As we mentioned earlier, selfie sticks were banned at Disneyland, at all of their theme parks including Disneyland and Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World. They’re very serious about the selfie stick ban, too.
According to Market Watch, Disney California Adventure’s roller coaster, California Screamin’, was stopped right before the drop because one of the passengers whipped out a selfie stick.
Selfie sticks have also been banned at hipster music festival Coachella and historical landmarks like the National Gallery in London and the Colosseum in Rome.
They’re even being banned on train services, too. In Japan, there’s a ban on using selfie sticks when you’re boarding the bullet train, according to Digital Trends magazine.
Tourists often use the selfie sticks to take pictures of themselves with the sleek bullet train front-car in the background.
The reason for the ban? West Japan Railways (JR West) says that selfie sticks can annoy other passengers and could trigger accidents and injuries if used improperly. This ban by JR West is believed to be the first selfie-stick ban imposed for transport services.
The selfie stick seems to be facing a decline in popularity due to all of these bans at popular locations. Market Watch reports that they day selfie-sticks were banned at Disneyland shares of GoPro, the company often credited for making selfie sticks go viral, were down almost 2 percent.
To combat this backlash, one photographer is attempting to innovate on the traditional selfie stick design so that it isn’t as cumbersome. Digital Trends reports that Steve Sawitz recently got a Kickstarter campaign funded for GripDat, a more compact selfie stick.
But just because selfie sticks are banned at tonight’s Emmy Awards doesn’t mean you’ll miss getting a chance to have a pic with your favorite actor or actress.
The ban on selfie sticks doesn’t mean that selfies themselves are banned. You just have to do them the old-fashioned way.
[Photo by Charley Gallay / Getty Images for Jonathan & George Salon]
