countries ban use of selfie sticks

Apparently, the popularity of modern selfie sticks exploded in Asia before sweeping the world.

But amid their growing popularity, officials in South Korea last year banned the use of “unregulated” selfie-sticks, according to the Daily Mail.

It’s also to with the use of Bluetooth in the offending sticks, which the authorities decided made them “telecommunications devices” that required testing and registering in case they interfered with other equipment.

While the selfie stick is no doubt a cultural curiosity in itself, several museums around the country have decided they have no place among their artefacts, and have begun to ban them. The move follows a widespread veto in leading museums and galleries across the United States, including New York City's MoMA, the Guggenheim, and the Getty Center.

 

 

But why? If you see the 'Mona Lisa', of course you're going to want a piccie with it (although that's in the Louvre, where you feasibly could, because selfie sticks aren't yet banned there) because that's the age we live in. Who's to say the Mona Lisa herself would have been above a selfie or two? After all, she was vain enough to sit and have a portrait painted.

 

But it's not the vanity that the museums are taking issue with. At a metre and a half long, the sticks are a nearly sure-fire way to an ancient bust completely stacking it - which was the reason given by the Hubei Museum - while other non-selfie-stick-using visitors complained that it was becoming quite difficult to see artworks what with people's faces mooning around in front of them. In this sense, the ban has been welcomed by art lovers the world over.

 

 

The Nanjing Museum was one of the first institutions to begin objecting to visitors using the devices, along with several museums in Wuhan. The Forbidden City in Beijing is another advocate of this ban. The museum will be stopping visitors from using selfie sticks in crowded exhibition halls in fear of the possible damage to its invaluable collection brought by extendable sticks, according to South China Morning Post.

 

No museums in Shanghai have announced a ban as yet, although we're sure it won't be long until they follow suit.