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The great new art trend: Selfies at funerals

Humanity knows no bounds to its imagination. There is now a Tumblr feed curating selfies taken at homages to the departed.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read
Sad? SelfiesAtFunerals/Tumblr Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

I hate to state what seems to be obvious, but funerals aren't fun.

Yes, there are a lot of little black dresses and dapper suits, but things are often miserable. At least until the chardonnay starts flowing at the after party.

It seems, therefore, that some have taken to creating selfies at funerals. Just to spice up their own living existences, you understand.

This artistic subculture has been offering its creations for some time. However, it has now come to prominence thanks to a Tumblr feed entitled SelfiesAtFunerals.

Fast Company senior editor Jason Feifer took it upon himself to reveal artifacts he finds on the Web and offer them, well, a memorial of their own. On his Twitter feed, Feifer explained that he was assembling another Tumblr called SelfiesAtSeriousPlaces when he had this idea to be socially conscious.

He also said that there's no particular cleverness or subterfuge here: "It's simple -- just search twitter, etc. for 'funeral selfie,' and they all pop up. No magic here!"

What's perhaps most moving about SelfiesAtFunerals isn't so much the images of themselves that people post. It's the captions they use to accompany them.

For example: "Love my hair today. Hate why I'm dressed up #funeral."

Or the quite seminal: "#boyfriend #gorgeous #funeral #grandad #wake #hipster #tagsforlikes #photooftheday #like #follow."

Some will be especially moved by the selfie taken by one young gentleman. It happens to have his dead grandma in the background, peacefully lying in her coffin.

Social anthropologists, on examining the whole feed, will remark on how every single person in these selfies appears to be below the age of 23.

Might this indicate an artistic lack of understanding of the selfie on the part of older people?

Or might it merely suggest that when they go to a funeral they find the concept of death slightly more tangible?

Art. SelfiesAtFunerals/Tumblr Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET