Selfies seem to be the ‘in’ thing these days. Whereas it used to be that people would post pictures of the food items they were enjoying in various eateries to boast of their prosperity and joie-de-vivre, now it is selfies. But go one step ahead and you’ll get the selfie stick.
Selfie sticks are the latest craze in the city that never sleeps. And that was definitely no less the case a week-and-a-half ago as tourists and natives alike saw in the new year around Rockefeller Plaza and Times Square. One would have been well advised to watch their back (or front) for these digital sticks as getting poked was not such a strange possibility on December 31st in the heart of New York City.
The selfie stick – a kind of rod that can attach to a smartphone – is used to snap selfies without having to have someone’s arm lurking in the end result. Apparently they have been very popular in Dubai now for quite a while. But in New York – and the rest of the nation – it is a gimmick that is only just starting to gain popularity, even though phone-holding rods have been available in the country for the last four years. It was iStabilizer CEO Noah Rasheta who thought of the idea as he was frustrated on a trip to Asia that every picture had his arm in it. So he started working on a selfie stick, and thus the Monopod was born. Retailing for around $35, there have been approximately 40,000 of the device since 2012.