My wife and I were at the base of an amazing waterfall in central Costa Rica, and we watched a series of tourists taking “selfies” against a backdrop of rushing water. It reminded me how many people now act like they have to compete with each other to get the “perfect shot,” even at the risk of life and limb.
As the website Live Science pointed out recently, “Selfies seem to be everywhere these days: on the campaign trail, at the Oscars, even at funerals. Turns out people will go to great lengths, risking life and limb, to capture the perfect shot of themselves.”
It turns out that selfies are more deadly than shark attacks. As Euro News reported earlier this year, “A study published in the Journal of Travel Medicine in 2022 uncovered 379 selfie-related deaths over the previous 13 years. Among these, 140 tourists tragically snapped their final photo. Meanwhile, only 90 fatal encounters during the same time frame involved sharks, primarily unprovoked.”
But it’s not just life or limb that some people will risk –– it’s also money, and lots of it. Recently, a crypto billionaire from Hong Kong bid $6.2 million to “win” a piece of “art” –– a banana duct-taped to a wall, auctioned by Sotheby’s. To prove his ultimate selfie status, Chinese billionaire and cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun then ate that banana and posted the video on X. when asked (of course he was) what it tasted like he said, “To be honest, for a banana with such a back story, the taste is naturally different from an ordinary one. I could discern a hint of what Big Mike bananas from 100 years ago might have tasted like.” (How very discerning, Justin Sun!)
All quite legal, of course. But wrong? This old-school blogger feels compelled to post and ask, “What was the artist thinking? What was Sotheby’s thinking? What kind of people were bidding millions on what appeared to be (and was) a very ordinary Cavendish banana? (One sold on a New York City street for 25 cents.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/27/nyregion/banana-auction-sothebys.html
And, of course, why in the world would anyone spend $6.2 million on a 25 cent banana when he could actually be using that money to do some good in the world?
I will say this: if this guy is selling crypto currency, I’m not buying his, or anything like it.