
Selfie Deaths in the Outdoors - joegahona
https://www.outsideonline.com/2393419/selfie-deaths
======
dkarl
The story used to introduce this story is the death of an experienced
backcountry hiker who, after losing a bet, packed a bikini to the top of a
mountain and took a selfie, then decided it would be a fun thing to do on the
regular after getting positive attention for it. She was an experienced hiker
before this. She did not hike for the purpose of taking selfies. She did not
hike in a bikini. She was not taking a selfie when she fell. She was fully
clothed and wrapped in an emergency blanket when she froze to death. I haven't
read a single mention of any evidence that she was an unskilled or
irresponsible hiker _period_ let alone anything related to the bikini
pictures. Calling this "selfie-related" and putting her in the same category
as irresponsible narcissists and drunk morons is shamefully insulting.

This story is not outright dishonest, unlike the typical mass media story [1]
that says she climbed mountains in her bikini and then immediately follow that
up with the story of her falling and freezing to death, leaving readers with
an image of a stupid girl prancing up a mountain half-naked without
appropriate gear. Still, I hope they get roasted by their readers for it and
forced to publish an apology.

[1] [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bikini-
hiker-g...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bikini-hiker-gigi-
wu-dead-taiwan-yushan-national-park-nantou-county-a8739081.html)

~~~
gatherhunterer
The author explains exactly what happened and still refers to it as a “selfie-
related death.” That is atrocious.

~~~
Bartweiss
That whole attempt to analyze Wu (and the others profiled) by talking to
social media experts is stunningly unfair.

Honnold got his start free soloing because he didn't have a climbing partner,
then continued later because it let him climber faster and more easily. Wu's
past is less documented, but to all appearances she was seriously hiking and
mountaineering long before her rise on social media, no different than any
other mountaineer who hones their skills and then later lands a sponsorship.
Bypassing those histories in favor of talking about "personal brands" and
selfie-induced selective attention is incredibly unfair. The comparisons
between professional and amateur photographers taking risks make some sense
here, but there's no such narrative for these two. The risks they run aren't
related to their photography, and there's no copycat epidemic of solo
mountaineers and climbers.

Better to talk about Wu alongside other hikers lost in Yushan, or even
alongside other serious 'celebrity' mountaineers like Scott Fischer. It's not
a story that has any place in this piece.

------
bfrydl
In the first example, the author is trying to claim that the woman died on a
quest to take a selfie in a bikini. That woman was a mountain climber. She
died trying to summit a 10,000 foot plus mountain. It seems disrespectful to
focus on the selfie aspect and place her in the same category as a man who
tried to take a selfie with a wild bear.

> It’s easy to write off these tragedies as catastrophically bad judgment.

Yeah, because they are. I have never once thought about risking my life for a
selfie. The only thing the author offers to explain why this isn't true is
that some selfie deaths occur while the photographer is engaged in “non-risky”
behavior. That would make them accidents. Whether someone was holding a phone
when an unforeseeable accident befalls them seems pretty irrelevant.

Overall I'm not sure 259 people dying in six years worldwide can be called an
epidemic, especially when you consider that they may have died this way even
without handheld cameras to document it. It seems very silly to call it “our
obsession” with photographing risk-taking when obviously the overwhelming
majority of people do not do this.

------
dontbenebby
This is not a new phenomenon. When I visited the grand canyon (pre cell phone)
every gift shop carried a book called "Over The Edge: Death in Grand Canyon".
Most of the deaths were from people urinating into, gazing into, or walking
too close to the edge but a whole chapter was dedicated to people who walk in
while taking photographs.

(Also good to know that apparently you can have a dizziness spell gazing into
a deep void like that, a large chunk were people who stood on the edge, looked
in, got dizzy and fell over)

While it's definitely an issue, I'd caution against blaming technology.

------
misthop
The article touches on, but doesn't really differentiate, the actions or
artists/athletes and someone taking a "dangerous" selfie because they were
there.

They call out Gigi Wu, Victor Thomas and Alex Honnold - all three do this with
purpose, and planning (Alex Honnold especially. To bring him into this topic
is odd to me.

<SPOILER> He had practiced the El Cap climb roped in countless times, until he
had every hand hold memorized, and understood intimately that he could die.
</SPOILER>

That is all very different than the person who sees a shot where they are, and
takes an uncalculated risk, because the photo is just there to take.

~~~
Bartweiss
The use of the Gigi Wu story was unfair to begin with, but it became far
weirder when it was set up for some kind of contrast with Honnold.

> _Is Gigi Wu’s summit project really all that different than the stylized
> images we love to see in glossy magazines like Outside? Do we put it in the
> same category as, say, elite athlete Alex Honnold’s epic free climb of El
> Capitan_

That's a nasty rhetorical trick, because they _are_ in the same category, but
it's not the one the story set up for Wu. Solo traverses and free soloing are
both risky but established practices, and neither is a product of selfies or
modern media culture. John Bachar was setting the precedent for Yosemite free
solos 30 years ago, and solo hiking is too old to date. Wu and Honnold aren't
average people getting hurt imitating experts, they're experts who happened to
gather fame for risks they were already taking. Neither of them deserves to be
present in a story about people endangering themselves for the sake of social
media.

~~~
usrusr
Honnold is mentioned in the article because he is routinely featured on
outsideonline.com (an "old media" personality), Wu is in there as a
representative of the social media personalities measured in followers gained
through extreme pictures. The fact that she did not die from a careless selfie
folly is what forms a chain of closeness between the easily ridiculed thrill
selfie crowd and the "serious outdooring" celebrated by outsideonline.com. I
read it as an element of self-reflection: "it's not as polar as we might like
to think".

------
injidup
"Selfie Deaths Are an Epidemic"

259 deaths over 6 years is hardly an epidemic and probably statistically
insignificant as a cause of death.

~~~
cr0sh
They recently banned the sale of MEK here in the United States (it's used
mainly as a paint stripper), arguably due to its inhalation danger. It was
extremely volatile, and in an enclosed space (indoors), it could cause someone
to die.

Which it did, of course.

I'm pretty sure it was far fewer deaths than this over a period of 30-40
years, yet for some reason, it was deemed to be highly dangerous and pulled
from the market (IIRC, you can still get it for industrial uses - consumer use
has been banned).

Just to be clear, I'm saying the same thing I believe you are; that
statistically the numbers are insignificant. I find it ludicrous that in the
case of MEK, it was used as an excuse to pull the product (to be replaced by
far inferior other products on the market) - though I tend to wonder if that
was the only reason (I tend to wonder if it didn't have to so with our "war on
some drugs", as such a fluid could be used for the making of meth, I imagine).

I doubt any laws will be enacted in the case of "selfie deaths", though - even
though if you compared the numbers with the "death from MEK inhalation", you'd
see that people are far more likely to die from a selfie than from stripping
paint with MEK.

~~~
dwyerm
The annoying thing is that laws don't even have to be passed directly against
you to still impact you.

As far as I can tell, there's no law requiring "air duster" manufacturers to
add bitterant to their products to prevent inhalant abuse. But despite that,
it is in pretty much all of their products. It has become nearly impossible to
purchase uncontaminated dusters.

~~~
jdsully
Out of curiosity, what are the drawbacks of the "contaminated" dusters? I've
never noticed the bitterant in normal use.

~~~
dwyerm
If you use a lot of it, it will get into the air and you will taste it. If you
use it to clean a keyboard or mouse, the bitterant transfers to your fingers,
and then on to your lunch.

It's a kind of disgusting example of how diseases get transferred, now that I
think about it...

Lastly, you should NOT use it to clean flour out of the crevices of your
kitchen mixer.

------
tjr225
As someone heavily emotionally invested in the public outdoor spaces of the
United States - I really wish the larger outdoor retailers/services/etc would
put more emphasis on respecting places "digitally." It's great that more
people are getting out and enjoying the outdoors but you have to worry that we
could be hugging something we love to death.

Anyway, there is a small movement to create an 8th Leave no Trace principle:
[https://8thlnt.wordpress.com/](https://8thlnt.wordpress.com/) \- and that is
to be mindful of what we do digitally in the outdoors.

Another good article on the subject: [https://lnt.org/new-social-media-
guidance/](https://lnt.org/new-social-media-guidance/) &
[https://www.racked.com/2018/8/27/17719792/outdoor-
influencer...](https://www.racked.com/2018/8/27/17719792/outdoor-influencers-
leave-no-trace-bears-ears)

In any case, I've seen what people do to trails/nature/wilderness and its
pretty depressing. Just last weekend I went hiking with my friend and his
friend in the Olympic Peninsula. Friend's friend has 35k Instagram followers
all from taking photos of himself and his dogs outdoors and to my great dismay
he left his dog poop right on the trail within the first half mile of the
hike!

~~~
misthop
Something similar is done in caving. Cave locations are generally not shared.
You learn where a cave is when someone who has been there takes you to cave
it. There is sort of a secret society aspect to it, but it is maintained to
keep both practitioners and the caves safe.

~~~
genericone
The Spelunker's Code

------
njharman
> Selfie Deaths Are an Epidemic > 259 people died between 2011 and 2017

43 deaths per year is ABSOLUTELY NOT an epidemic. Sorry to be harsh, but it is
a (minor) rounding error in accidental death statistics. I wouldn't even
consider it newsworthy.

------
Confusion
How many people died similar deaths in the outdoors before mobile phones?

How many where neither a phone nor camera is, or was, involved?

Without numbers to compare the reported numbers against, this tells us
nothing.

~~~
Taylor_OD
Sure. But people who are not having their photo taken are more likely to be
looking out than those who are backing towards dangerous footing to get a good
selfie.

~~~
misthop
I wouldn't make that assumption. Plenty of people are moving around to get the
perfect view, and are still not paying attention to how risky the situation
is. Also, as mentioned elsewhere in the comments, vertigo can play a part -
and that is _more_ likely to happen when looking at the vista than when
maneuvering for a photo.

------
gerbilly
I don't think that there's any reason to shame people for taking adventure
selfies, any more than we 'shame' people for climbing everest¹ or people who
run marathons.²

Often it's not even the selfie itself that causes the accident. Just being in
these places/environments increases risk of death obviously, but that's not
newsworthy.

1: 6.5% death rate among people who summit. Probably higher overall, but I
couldn't find a statistic for that.

2: Death rate of 0.8 per 100,000 people.

------
nkrisc
> That’s exactly what happens when we take a selfie: our attention is focused
> on the camera and the shot, not where we are placing our feet or what’s
> around us. We literally have no idea that we are about to step off a cliff
> or tumble over a waterfall. Put another way, we don’t intend to engage in
> risky behavior; we just don’t realize we’ve wandered into that realm until
> it’s too late.

While this may be true, the ability to determine a situation might be unsafe
before the act of taking the selfie isn't diminished. When I visited the Grand
Canyon, there were people sitting on the edge of precipitous drops, carefree.
I chose to not even come within 50ft. of the drop simply because the potential
risk far outweighed any potential gain. By going to the edge I risked death,
for what? A view down the canyon? There are extraordinary views from a very
safe distance. My life is worth more than any photograph.

------
Causality1
Typical media alarmism. A few years ago it was "GPS is going to kill us all
because people keep driving off cliffs following it". Journalists are always
quick to exploit a minor tragedy to the utmost in the pursuit of page views.

------
ryanmarsh
_It’s easy to write off these tragedies as catastrophically bad judgment_

... but hang on while I try to convince you that 259 deaths (supposedly) in 6
years (‘11 - ‘17), a time period beginning immediately following the launch of
Instagram, is an epidemic we should all take a moment away from our families
and work to be concerned about.

------
djsumdog
I realize the article is disingenuous as others have pointed out, but going
back to selfies, I just don't understand them. I've taken thousands of photos
while living in various places around the world, but they rarely ever have me
in them (usually only if a friend wants one of us as a group):

[https://journeyofkhan.us](https://journeyofkhan.us)

I think there is value in questioning why we care so much about photos of us
in exotic places, and how that desire has grown with the advances of digital
photography, phone cameras and social networking/sharing. But this article
fails to ask or comment on those questions.

------
LarryDarrell
I was in the Grand Canyon a week ago, and the amount of posing girls perched
on off-trail ledges being photographed by their boyfriends was astounding. I
couldn't help but think something very wrong has been let loose in society. It
really made me feel like I was observing primates in some mating ritual gone
berserk.

Edit: To be clear, I'm not talking about lovebirds taking a selfie. My wife
and I do that all the time. I'm talking about the sustained amateur photo
shoots. We kept hearing over and over as we walked along, "Why can't I connect
here? My instas aren't loading." It was bizarre.

~~~
lovehashbrowns
> It really made me feel like I was observing primates in some mating ritual
> gone berserk.

This is so condescending. They're primates in some berserk mating ritual
because people like taking pictures of themselves with nature in the
background? I'm also curious how you know they were dating but not married.
Apparently, "sustained amateur photo shoots" is a good indicator of who they
are as people or human beings? How does the Mona Lisa fit into all of this?
That portrait in front of nature is okay because it's a painting? Because she
was married?

------
jbeckham
Am I the only one that was expecting a site similar to the Darwin Awards?

------
CzarnyZiutek
selfie death = natural selection

------
La-ang
Anything for the Gram Likes :D

------
reneberlin
Darwinious. The author.

~~~
reneberlin
The author suspected pageviews / pageimpressions. By the numbers of deaths to
population division: clickbait. I guess the age of the author between 23 and
26.

More peiple die by struggling themselves in their bed by accident. Nuf said.

Sorry for the direct rhetoric approach - but instead of commenting on bs
inthink the thinkers on HN could use use their brainlard on more positive,
insightful and entertaining topics.

Me, waking up now.

~~~
reneberlin
Talking to myself. Emm ... yes, sir. Better than waiting or scrolling on a
glass-surface other than a bottle of beer, either.

