-Do you remember when it first happened?
-Not, I do not know. It was little by little. The first time it comes to mind was a young woman. Stood in front of me, outlined head, He folded her and started taking horrible photos in which she was in the foreground and I barely had space in the snapshot.. He made them with a small thing that I had never seen before., but a statue friend who had participated months before in an exhibition in Tokyo told us: “it's a mobile phone”. We couldn't believe it. They didn't even take photos with cameras anymore., they did them with phones. Panic spread among all works of art. It was horrible, horrible… (He maintains a short silence and after a deep sigh the marble falls silent.). Don't you mind leaving me alone for a while?? They are going to open the doors and the nightmare will begin again… They come, They come... It never ends.
A kind of stupidity overtaken the entire population
The inspector understood that the statue was broken and decided to stop putting pressure on it.. New witnesses had to be found, new clues that could clarify the case of “the selfies”. A kind of stupidity that occurred to the entire population that was destroying the already weakened world of tourism.. The complaints and complaints had been constant for years but in recent weeks they had skyrocketed. The entire universe of travel was at risk of vanishing under a plague that had no end.. no longer traveled, I was only interested in taking selfies. The agent decided to go chat with the old stones of the Angkor Wat temples, in Cambodia, where it seems that the phenomenon had been unleashed.
-The horror, I have seen the horror. I have seen people walk backwards while taking photos in the middle of the temples. They don't look at us straight, They look at us through their phone screen, backward. They don't care about us anymore, the important thing is them.
-That's impossible. How are they going to do that if it is physically impossible??
-Not, not anymore. Now there are some sticks where they place their phones and take selfies from a distance while they walk backwards.
A silence ran through the room. The stone faces of Angkor Thom fell silent. The extendable mobile phone holding stick was a perfect weapon for selfies, a weapon of mass destruction of quality photos. The inspector was listening to the story of the legendary old stone faces when he saw a Korean passing by with his mobile phone who told him:
-Can you please step aside a little? I want to take a photo with my cell phone.
Then he saw that the boy extended his stick with his right hand and raised his left hand while making the victory sign and taking a photo with the stone faces in the background and his own in the foreground.. It was in such bad taste that he gagged.. He got dizzy.
-“It's impressive, "It's a perfect gadget to become an idiot traveler.", the agent managed to exclaim as he left with his head down..
Already on the way to the plane, back to europe, saw young people taking selfies in the tuk tuk, in a local market where he stopped to buy water and on the steps of the airplane itself. Panic ran through his entire body.. “Photography and travel as we knew it will disappear”, thought.
It had been months since they had seen a snapshot of them that was acceptable
In a hotel in Rome, organizing everything collected, The inspector reviewed the testimonies of monuments around the world in which it was said that no one took photos of them alone anymore., that there is no longer a second for rest because there are always dozens of cameras pointed at them and that it had been months since they had seen a snapshot of them that was acceptable. “There are always people ahead. “We are no longer important.”, They denounced all the great works.
Then the inspector understood the physical causes of that debacle. Everyone has small and portable mobile phones, not like expensive old cameras, with which to take thousands of photos free of charge. Furthermore, this device had been invented that extends and allowed people to take photos even alone.. The machinery was perfect but, Why? The reasons were missing, the impulse to all that horror, that stupidity that comes to everyone at the same time. It was then, while I was in bed, when, already drowsy, he saw a report on the news that put him on the track.
-“In Australia, where an Islamist has kidnapped a group of people in a cafeteria, There are dozens of curious people who go to the door to take selfies”, I'm listening. He heard it out of the blue and jumped out of bed to turn up the volume.. Then photos of people who had posted the snapshots on something called Facebook appeared on the screen while a guy locked in a bar in the background threatened to kill dozens of people..
They found a nearby cafe that said “Free Wi-Fi.”
He grabbed his jacket and ran out into the street.. He went to the Colosseum and there he found a group of tourists taking a massive selfie with a Roman centurion.. The same thing happened in the Vatican., in front of the Pietà, where a couple took a selfie in front of Michelangelo's masterpiece. He decided to follow them to see what was happening as they hurriedly left the temple.. The two walked with an agile step until they found a nearby cafe that said “Free Wi-Fi.”. He went to the bar to ask for a coffee and the password. As soon as he had the second one, he gave it to her who quickly opened that thing called Facebook and uploaded the photo in which the two of them were seen in the foreground and behind., on the right side a marble foot and on the left the face of a dying man. wrote below: “For Mercy…, “We love Rome.”. Then he continued with “we continue telling about our trip.”, are you coming?”. From his research he understood that they had a travel blog.
The inspector, who saw it all, He went back to the hotel and started digging into that thing called Facebook.. I would open random people's pages and selfies would appear everywhere. Very few people uploaded photos of monuments, or beautiful landscapes or dishes of food. It was always them in the foreground, smiling, happy. Excessive, excesivo, sin control. The problem was the quantity, They were everywhere. Everything fit, it already made all sense. The bullshit had taken unwavering control of everything.. Photography and travel would never be the same again.. The mobiles, extendable poles and social networks had ended everything. “There is no solution, the stupidest ego has taken over man, "There is no other way out but to flee.", wrote the inspector in his report while sitting in front of the Spanish Steps in Rome. He then realized that he was being photographed.. A middle-aged man took a selfie in which he would appear in the background.
And he saw smiling faces, heads carrying a Santa Claus hat
He started running. The cold and the people did not allow him to move quickly. It was Christmas, there were people everywhere. And he saw smiling faces, heads wearing a Santa Claus hat and taking selfies in every corner of the narrow streets. It was horrible, a christmas nightmare. He managed to get to his hotel and close the door to his room. He sat down and started crying. I couldn't stand it. decided to leave, throw in the towel, leave everything. He investigated and saw that there was a company that offered flights to space. He took out all his money and bought a ticket to take him out of this world..
One year later, also at Christmas, which was the time when selfies were taken the most according to their study, After being locked up for twelve months in a selfie-free clinic, he managed to go into orbit, to finally be able to take a photo of the Earth where there were no people behind it taking a selfie. The ship began to circle the planet and the inspector decided to take out his old slide camera.. He framed behind the window, He focused and at that moment he saw the impossible. There was an astronaut in front of him taking a selfie in the middle of space.
-“Sons of a Whore”, It was the last thing he exclaimed while compulsively taking selfies floating in the universe, until the end...
