Residents in London, U.K. expressed outrage this week after witnessing passersby taking selfies in front of what’s left of the charred remains Grenfell Tower apartment building.
Residents have placed signs on fences around the site following last week’s inferno that killed at least 79 people, asking people not to take photos and selfies.
“Grenfell a tragedy not a tourist attraction #selfies,” one sign reads.
Speaking with British newspaper The Independent, a resident who lived in the building adjoining Grenfell Tower said the sight of people snapping selfies is “disgusting.”
“People are saying ‘show some respect, this is not the time and place for it’ but they have continued doing it and just walked away to do it elsewhere,” Wayne Kilo Lewis told the newspaper. “You don’t want to confront them because it’s all so sensitive but it gets to the stage you have so much upset and rage you just want to slap the phone out of their hands.”
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On Monday, police confirmed 79 people were either dead or missing and those who are unaccounted for are presumed to be dead as a result of the fire. Only five people have been formally identified.
Lewis said the act of taking a selfie in such a place is disrespectful to those who lost loved ones and for the remaining survivors.
“Residents have had enough of people using it as a tourist attraction. Find a way to help the community if you want to take a few photos or videos that’s not a problem but do not come down like a party scene,” Lewis told The Independent.
Selfies are not new, nor is taking so-called “disaster selfies.”
In 2015, a massive fire ripped through a hotel in Dubai on New Year’s Eve, injuring dozens of people. Two men were arrested for taking a selfie in front of the burning luxury hotel.
In 2014, a teen girl was slammed on social media for posing for a selfie at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.
Speaking with CNN, a psychology professor at University of Massachusetts suggests “disaster selfies” is not for “coping.” It’s self-promotion.
“Putting your face in front of a disaster scene adds a different dimension to the incident,” Susan Krauss Whitbourne said. “Then it’s not coping, it’s just self-promotion. You’re hoping to get attention or comments on your photos. It’s one thing to honour and respect the drama and suffering that people have gone through, and it’s another to cross that line. There’s always been a tendency to make yourself part of the action and show you were there.”
Aside from in front of disaster areas, it’s a good rule of thumb to avoid taking selfies at holy sites, concentration camps and Holocaust memorials, museums, train tracks, edges of buildings and cliffs and while driving or cycling.