The Hot New Selfie Trend Is a Great Way to Destroy Your Phone

Have you heard about the latest craze to set fire to the internet? No, it’s not Ken Bone’s tomato-colored sweater, or Donald J. Trump’s “locker room talk,” or the actually flammable Galaxy Note 7. This furor is much dumber.

The new “thing,” as many news outlets have delighted in reporting, is the high-five, hands-free selfie. Like many inane, viral happenings, it all began with a tweet.

The young man above, Seth Schneider, appears to have achieved quite the feat: successfully taking a selfie while high-fiving himself. His tweet, initially posted on Saturday, now has over 170,000 retweets, and has spawned a number of imitators. Just search Twitter for “high-five selfie” or “hands-free selfie” and you’ll find plenty.

There is only one rational response to this, and it is not, “Wow, that’s cool!” It is this: “Stop throwing your goddamn phone in the air.”

This isn’t to take away from Seth’s accomplishment, because I’m not a monster, and the kid can have his 15 minutes of viral fame. But most people, myself included, are not Seth; we are uncoordinated oafs who have oven mitts for hands, and that doesn’t bode well for the very expensive, airborne gadgets required for this “trick.”

As a few people have already demonstrated, there’s a very, very good chance you will shatter your screen or otherwise fuck up your phone, especially if, like Seth, you try to toss your phone above a hard bathroom counter.

Some people might try to argue that the damage is worth it for a few dozen retweets or the opportunity to tell their grandkids they participated in the Great Moronic Phone Toss Of 2016. Do not listen to those people. Save your phone, and save yourself the cost of having to fix it. If you must insist on trying it, at least do it above something other than a bathroom counter, like a carpet or something. Seriously, though, don’t do it. The photos will probably end up blurry and unidentifiable anyway.

Then again, if you have a Galaxy Note 7, smashing your phone to pieces might not be the worst idea.