If anyone has ever attempted to traverse the land that is social media we all know how scary and devastatingly intimidating it can be. Once you get past all the bells, whistles, likes, dislikes, thumb ups, thumb downs, middle fingers, and plethora of variations of the traditional smiley face you will notice that this foreign land is flooded with pictures and videos. On further inspection it would appear that many of these people are simply taking pictures of themselves as individuals and as a group. ..this is known as the selfie.

The selfie has become so prominent it has made its way into the categorization of reputable adult websites, the infamous girl, cell phone, mirror category. I discovered this phenomenon while I was obviously doing research for this article and was blown away at the prominence of the selfie across nearly every form of digital media.

With safety being of primary concern I did a little more research into this phenomenon and noticed that the evolution of the selfie is advancing at an incredible rate and an almost mandatory piece of equipment is what is referred to as a selfie stick. Now this apparatus is adjustable in length, holds your phone at the end of it, and allows you to take a picture encompassing a larger surface area which makes it ideal for large groups, shots that include more of one’s upper body, or the ever present healthy gal.

During the actual photographing moment there is a general tendency to focus solely on yourself and the picture and ignore your surroundings which is a violation of every self-defense rule to have ever been created. To help keep you safe during your selfie-ing or whatever it is you call this act, please watch the video below as Master Ken discusses selfie defense.

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Jacob C. Stevens is a lifelong athlete and cerebral martial arts enthusiast who is also skilled in the art of linguistic manipulation, his published work, Afterthoughts and Handgrenades, can be found here…