Prince Harry’s ‘No Selfie Rule’ Ends? See Photo Of Prince Smiling Broadly For Selfie At Army Celebration

Prince Harry’s “no selfie rule” may have just ended. The British prince said just months ago that he thought selfies were a bad habit and that it wasn’t a good thing for young people to do. Besides, he far prefers a “normal photograph” than to selfies any day.

As Hello! reports, when Harry recently visited Australia and New Zealand, he attended a parade in which there was a 200-year celebration of Gurkha service with the British Army. The fifth in line to the British throne broke his no selfie rule when a young woman there in traditional dress wanted her photo taken with him. He said yes to taking this particular photo, but declined the request of a young fan in April while touring the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

According to The Telegraph, the prince said at the time: “No, I hate selfies. Seriously, you need to get out of it (the habit), I know you’re young, selfies are bad. Just take a normal photograph!”

As seen in the photograph, Prince Harry’s “no selfie rule” sticks to one solid vow he’s made — not to look into the camera of the selfie. As seen in the photos taken by Getty Images, he’s looking straight into their camera lenses — ignoring the woman’s cell phone camera altogether. He did this in another photo when he toured a museum in New Zealand. Harry greeted 14-year-old, Finlay Martin, but The Telegraph reported: “He said he didn’t do selfies but he would do this one but not look at the camera… ”

When Prince Harry had his “no selfie rule” firmly put in place at the time, he received a lot of praise, New York Daily News wrote. In fact, Jonathan Jones, an art critic for The Guardian, mentioned in an editorial why selfies are bad and why they should be avoided.

“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.”

Social Media researcher at the University of Melbourne, Lauren Rosewarne, added another tidbit to this philosophy before Prince Harry broke his “no selfie rule.”

“Young people need to be reminded as many times as possible that what you put online stays online, even if you delete it. He knows probably better than anyone… how these images will never go away.”

[Photo Credit: Getty Images via Hello!]