Back in 2013, the term “selfie” was decided to be one of the words of the year. For those unfamiliar, selfie is a term used to refer to photos that one takes of themselves using their phones, cameras, or tablets. Taking selfies is not new but 2013 definitely took it to new heights where people were actually taking selfies while driving and even at funerals, leading to many raised eyebrows. Well it looks like finally there will be someone to police that kind of behavior in the form of the Selfie Police. While they do call themselves the Selfie Police, their legal authority is pretty much along the same lines as the English Police, the Fashion Police, and so on.
Basically they are a website launched by Brigham Young University students who encourage users to pay a “fine” for selfies that they take. In fact the website even encourages friends and families to “rat” on other friends and family members that have been known to take selfies. Of course the $1 fine is entirely voluntary where there the proceeds actually go to an organization called Vittana which helps provide loans to students in developing countries to help further their education. According to the Selfie Police’s co-creator, Chas Barton, “When we first came up with the idea we were trying to think of how to engage our generation in giving […] It’s tricky because we’re such a selfish generation, so the question we asked was not how do we make our generation charitable, but how do we turn selfishness into charity. That’s where Selfie Police was born.”