As much as it may have annoyed us (or just me, I guess), “Selfie” was the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2013, and it was a pretty appropriate honor. After all, the act of photographing oneself in strange and funny situations was the biggest meme hit of the last year, and it’s still going strong. We had the Selfie Olympics and a girl mocking her iPhone’s thief with a series of hilarious selfies. Darth Vader took a selfie, as did President Obama, and if your selfies sucked, you could instantly add Nic Cage to them. Then things started getting darker, as one guy took a selfie after a plane crash, a girl took one with a cadaver, and idiots everywhere made “Funeral Selfies” an actual thing.
That’s why I’m kind of shocked that Selfies With Homeless People is just now becoming a thing. I would have thought that people taking pictures in front of napping homeless dudes would have taken off months ago, but better late than never, I guess. Obviously, some people are going to be outraged that people are mocking the homeless like this, and that’s why the people behind this Tumblr site at least suggested the idea of helping the homeless instead of stewing in the hatred of another variation of a tireless meme. That’s kind of an effort, right?
We could also be pissed that some people don’t know what a selfie is anymore. For example, here’s a solid selfie with a homeless person:
Here’s another:
And here’s one with a shirtless man as a little something for all the ladies out there:
Those are three good examples of seflies with homeless people. However, this is just a picture of two people posing with someone who might be dead:
This isn’t a selfie as much as it’s two bros and a girl making fun of a swaggy homeless guy, who looks like another bro who had too much:
And this is a girl either dancing on some passed out bros or pretending that she’s about to pee on them:
Either way, that’s not a selfie either. If we’re going to continue to spread the act and possibly even the art of the selfie, then we at least need to stay true to it. A selfie is only a selfie if it is taken by the person in it. Anything else is just a photograph, and regular photographs are dumb.