Should selfies be taken at war memorials, disaster zones etc

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I think they shouldn't as I feel it is inappropriate and disrespectful to the people who died. You can take photos but not selfies and misbehave at these places. Places I've been to see are Auschwitz, the war zones in Normandy, Berlin wall, Museum in Berlin to Holocaust victims, the Tower of London, spot of Thomas Becket's assassination in Canterbury Cathedral to name of few I can remember.

I wouldn't make it illegal per se, but I agree with you, it's in extremely poor taste, I wish people were more considerate. I wonder how many of them are capable of understanding the magnitude and significance of such places.

But I don't remember seeing people doing this or misbehaving in museums and some museums don't allow taking any kind of pictures. (the internet is probably full of such examples though)

I think it may be ok to take a picture.

But does seem like it would be distasteful to like do it in a smiling 'oh hey look at me and how cool I am' style selfie. But like if someone is visiting a place like that not sure it would be wrong to post some images just to share it with people that they went there. But yeah they probably should not take some picture of themself with auschwitz in the background where they are making some silly face or gesture.

If I were into selfies, I'd definitely take them at such places, as in how cool is this, see where I am way. If selfies had been a thing and I'd had a camera on me, I would definitely have selfied me in the old WW2 bunker I played in when I was on holiday at age 10. I thought being in it was awesome, of course. I was really excited about it.

I would only have a problem with such selfies if the selfie person got in the way of a rescue attempt or forced unwilling others in on it but that would be the same if it was a regular photograph.
I can see how both selfies and non-selfie photos could impact the mood of the place for others, especially if the event was recent, but you can't expect such things to have the same impact or reaction when it was ages ago, or for people it had no impact on for that matter. Distance matters to most people. Including me.

Example: when we visited Ground Zero a few years after the event, it was too early for me personally for it to be just another historical place, and except for one group of teens and some sellers, other visitors were also quiet and took pics in silence.

The same mood was there when we went to downtown Oslo to lay down roses shortly after the 22 July terror attack. I'm glad to report that the tourists that happened to be there, were all quiet and respectful.


It's only natural that time makes it less raw, same as ancient troubles aren't worrying us.


I remember this archaeologist I once saw in a program, who got all emotional about some kid sacrifices they had found. I cannot for the life of me understand how something that happened centuries ago could have that impact.

Bad things have happened everywhere. You can't keep it all sacred and off limits for ever.


Since I'm not into selfies, I would just take a regular good old fashioned photo of whatever it was, if I had brought a camera, which I wouldn't if it was something I just happened upon.


I once had a pen pal in Israel who went with their class to a WW2 concentration camp. They saw other classes visiting there too, and one in particular from another country, had had kids laughing and joking. My pen pal told me that their class had yelled at them to shut up. I told them something like sorry they ruined the atmosphere or something like that, but I also thought but didn't write of course, that it's been 50 years, you can't really expect everyone to react that way now. Plus of course, plenty of people and especially teens love being edgy. For that person and that class it might be about own relatives, to them it's just another school trip and probably one they looked forward to because they got to do an overnight, (which apparently many liked, no idea why, especially since you'd be forced to share arrangements with classmates).


This discussion reminds me of an article I saw some years ago about Pokemon Go players finding Pokemon in such places. I didn't see the problem with that either. If they even picked up something while there, that's great, if not, just be glad they're outside. For the record, no I never played Pokemon go, I couldn't be bothered to run all over the place searching.