Selfie Stick Bans Around the World: Is the Gadget Already on Its Way Out? — vogue.com

The rise of the selfie stick has been fast and furious. For the past year, the little point-and-shoot gadgets have been popping up everywhere: backstage at Fashion Week, on the treadmill, even for sale in the checkout line at the pharmacy. Which had us wondering: Are they becoming as ubiquitous as the Canada Goose parka? Possibly not, it seems, after today’s news that London’s National Gallery and the Palace of Versailles will be banning the use of selfie sticks on their premises. They’re the latest cultural sites to excommunicate the tech gadget from their grounds, along with Rome’s Colosseum, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian museums. And it’s not just art lovers and history buffs who will be left stickless. Other places where selfie sticks are reportedly no longer welcome include soccer stadiums in Brazil and some in the U.K. and the O2 and Wembley concert arenas in London. You might want to rethink your next trip to South Korea, too, as the sale of “unlicensed” selfie sticks is actually prohibited in the entire country.

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