The Rise Of Disaster Selfies
Social media influencers, travel bloggers and tourists have come under fire over the last couple of months over the rise of the phenomenon “disaster selfies”.
As Australia still fights the national bushfire emergency, social media “idiots” are being heavily scrutinised for hijacking #bushfires #bushfireselfie in their quest to get dangerous looking selfies in fire ravaged communities.
ACT Emergency Services Agency commissioner Georgeina Whelan announced at a press conference that snap-happy tourists were blocking the road for firefighters. Firefighters have complained throughout the disaster that people were blocking roads, climbing onto roofs to take photos and videos, but additional some roads were invaded by distaster tourists and hindering emergency services.
Not only have we hindered emergency services, this crisis unveiled a number of “influencer” lead trends.
While the bushfire crisis was devastating the country, instragrammers appears to be using the national crisis to leverage their social media accounts. Influencers, bloggers, brands and businesses seemingly hijacked the bushfire hashtag for what appears to be unrelated content. Although thousands of post were uploaded on a daily basis, many of which documented the bushfires and dire conditions crippling the country, some instagrammers shared images of themselves either posing with the smoke or photos that are in no way connected to the fires to increase engagement.
As Australians were advised to wear masks in the wake of the bushfire pollution, instagrammers cued the selfies and began a new trend which swept the platform. Australians took to Instagram to pose for selfies in their shiny new face masks, which they have been advised to wear to avoid inhaling all the smog (composed of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide among other things) blanketing their cities and towns. It became bushfire chic! Sydney it’s time to get serious,” one person wrote on Instagram, “but keep doing it in style! #sydneysmoke #stayclassysydney”. News.com.au reports that “Some mask wearers have posted selfies compared [sic] themselves to superheroes.”
BUT… Is this all a new trend?
The answer is no… The practice of disaster selfies and hijacking hashtags during times of tragedy is unfortunately nothing new. Australia just hasn’t experienced it at these levels. In fact we didn’t know it was a thing until we undertook some research.
We will cover this as a location on social media, but in the wake of the hit TV show Chernobyl, tourists flocked to the nuclear disaster site. But while many tourists are simply there to pay their respects, social media influencers are using renewed interest in the disaster to stage “irreverent or provocative” glamour shots for their Instagram accounts.
In 2015, a large group of people were reported to have taken a selfie beside the wreckage of the Dharahara Tower, an iconic landmark that was reduced to rubble in the Nepal earthquake that killed almost 9,000 people. And last year, a selfie showing a group of smiling women posing in front of the wreckage from the Sunda Strait tsunami went viral on social media.
Through our research we have discovered the dark art of “disaster selfies” and “dark tourism” has been a growing social media trend with many sites around the world the source of “dangerous” content for instagrammers.
Whilst we might be in the majority, we as a population need to show compassion, respect for all those who have suffered and sacrificed, not profit from it.