Disney Bans Selfie Sticks

New submitter albimaturityr writes with a story from the Orlando Sentinel that Disney is banning selfie sticks from its parks, starting with Disney World (as of Tuesday) but continuing with its other parks in California, Paris, and Hong Kong. Says the report: The issue has been building at Disney. Previously, the sticks were prohibited from its rides, and "no selfie-sticks" signs were at select rides, such as Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Magic Kingdom. Cast members have given verbal warnings to rule breakers. Several incidents preceded the change, but officials have been discussing the rules for some time, Disney said. This week at Disney California Adventure park, a roller coaster was halted after a passenger pulled out a selfie-stick. The ride was closed for an hour.

Comments

Hurray!

[ArcadeMan]

The new rule doesn't apply to selfie drones!

What were they thinking?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I imagine that there are parts of a given ride where you can safely deploy a 'selfie stick'; but what kind of idiot waves a pole around when moving at nontrivial speed near walls, beams, etc. that the pole can catch on? Roller coasters are designed not to subject you to unsafe levels of acceleration or deceleration; but that does not include sticking to speeds that are safe it a modestly rigid pole abruptly couples your moving, and squishy, body to an immobile structural element.

If you are lucky, you bought a cheap crap stick, and it will snap(and not send a sharp end into anyone's eye) before some part of your body does; but that's not really a gamble you want to take just for a lousy picture of yourself.

The little racket of selling pictures of the riders, taken by fixed cameras installed at strategic points, probably helped contribute to this decision, doing well by doing good and all that; but what a stupid idea.

Do people also take care to wear ponytails and/or ties when near rotating equipment? And dangle loose clothing over any exposed gears and belts they find? Or do we have people who've never met a machine more dangerous than an iPad or a minivan and just don't think?

Re:What were they thinking?

[Shados]

but what kind of idiot

You're in a world where everyone is constantly being told to do whatever the fuck they want, and everyone else is told to deal with it. People smoke while leaning on no-smoking signs, people drive through streets clearly labeled as private streets, people scream in libraries, yap on their phones in theaters, and take flash pictures in zoos scaring the animals away and there is fuck all reasonable people can do about it.

So now you have a rule in an amusement park that some idiots don't think apply to them (as usual), and its actually really important. You think they'll get it, after being able to ignore every other fucking rule they were ever subject to?

No, they won't. They'll treat the "No selfie stick sign" the same way they will every other damn sign they ignored.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Shados]

The difference is that merely being a dickhead is relatively low risk

People don't try to understand why rules are there. "Don't park there" could be because the snow truck has low visibility and risks ripping your car off. "Don't jaywalk" has a pretty fucking good reason behind it. Ignoring non-smoking signs isn't just being a dick head. My condo complex has a no BBQ rule, because its a group of historical buildings that are basically dry firewood close to each other. I don't think anyone aside me does NOT have a BBQ. Someday everyone will roast alive.

Thats my point: people cannot make the difference between just being a dick head and putting themselves and others genuinely at risk. Rules are meant to be ignored, no matter how important they are, to these people.

Re:What were they thinking?

[gstoddart]

I imagine that there are parts of a given ride where you can safely deploy a 'selfie stick'; but what kind of idiot waves a pole around when moving at nontrivial speed near walls, beams, etc. that the pole can catch on?

The kind of shallow, vain, social media obsessed person who carries around a damned selfie stick in the first place?

This isn't people thinking "gee, this could be stupid and dangerous", it's people thinking "I'm so putting this on Instagram".

Re:What were they thinking?

[beelsebob]

"Don't jaywalk" has a pretty fucking good reason behind it.

It does? The UK doesn't have a "don't jaywalk" rule, and there don't seem to be any adverse effects.

Re:What were they thinking?

[bzipitidoo]

There's good reason to be skeptical of rules. Too often, rules are not honest. The usual tactic is to not give any explanation. When that won't fly, safety is the #1 excuse for a rule. But so often, it turns out that someone profits from a rule, and that is the real reason for it. Even when there are genuine safety concerns, there is often also a profit motive. That seems highly likely with this particular Disney rule. Why couldn't people use electronic devices or carry nail clippers on planes? Why did so many cities try red light cameras? Why can't people bring their own food and drink to the movie theaters? Why can't we play movies on our computers' DVD drives?

Yeah. Don't blindly trust The Rules.

Re:What were they thinking?

[Shados]

Of course. But instead we're in a world of "blindly distrust the rules". And that is just as stupid. (also, in a lot of the cases you mentioned, its a private entity dictating what to do on their own property, which they're fully allowed to)

Re:What were they thinking?

[Shados]

How about -- rules are just guidelines, unless they are enforced

Congratulation, you just created a police state, where we have to put enforcement on every fucking thing because we can't expect people to be civil.

Re:What were they thinking?

[QuietLagoon]

... but what kind of idiot waves a pole around when moving at nontrivial speed near walls,...

There are many, many people ion this planet who are so self-absorbed, so oblivious to the world around them, that they regularly put others at risk.

.
At least those who walk into streetlight poles while texting hurt only themselves.

Re:What were they thinking?

[sjames]

That is a problem. With so many unjustified rules around, they become background noise. Then a rule that has a very good justification gets ignored.

Re:What were they thinking?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Half the world is intent on making rules for everything, just because "there ought to be a law" against anything remotely risky or unpleasant. And the other half lashes out by ignoring those rules an doing what the hell they want.

1) If you treat people like children, they will start behaving like them.
2) If you make tons of unreasonable rules, people will start breaking them in protest, and start breaking the reasonable ones as well, especially if it's hard to tell the two apart ("You can't bring your gun on the plane because of terrists, but you also can't bring your bottle of water for the same reason"). Unjust, unreasonable or petty laws endanger all of the law.

Now, having a rule against using selfie sticks in a roller coaster is reasonable, but people choose to ignore that law, or tell others to, because of a whole range of other laws that are silly. And because of the way those laws are enforced (instead of treating them as a means to an end, they are treated as a goal in themselves).

Re: What were they thinking?

[Fwipp]

There really oughta be a rule banning all these unjustified rules.

Re:What were they thinking?

[ArylAkamov]

"Do people also take care to wear ponytails and/or ties when near rotating equipment? And dangle loose clothing over any exposed gears and belts they find? Or do we have people who've never met a machine more dangerous than an iPad or a minivan and just don't think?"

There's a "hall of fame" of sorts at my old highschool of kids not paying attention to exactly this. One was nearly scalped by a drill press due to his ponytail, my second day in that class some kid reached into the lathe and it sucked him in by his long baggy sleeve. Thankfully they keep the belts loose so that no arms can be ripped off, he was still pretty banged up though.

Everyones first reaction is always to blame the school or the class teacher. I can easily tell you every accident could have easily been avoided if my classmates payed attention to the first three weeks of class detailing safety, including pictures of previous students.

Re:What were they thinking?

[beelsebob]

That sounds like an issue with the laws surrounding driving cars, not an issue with crossing the road.

Aside - while I have no stats to back it up, my bet would be that it's far less dangerous to jay walk in the UK than it is to cross at one of America's crossings attached to a huge light controlled crossroads (mostly due to right turn on red, but partly due to just the sheer number of things drivers must concentrate on). Speaking as a European living in the US, America's road designs are utterly and thoroughly fucked.

Re:What were they thinking?

[rtb61]

Let's be honest that selfie stick rule has absolutely nothing to do with what happened on the ride, that is the excuse. The real problem with selfie sticks is a little more subtle. New digital cameras, unlike old film cameras, can take shot, after shot, after shot with bad ones deleted not costing quite a bit of money each and every time the button is pushed. So old film camera, near enough, good enough. New camera, hmm, didn't like that one, lets try again and again and again, how about trying this or this or etc.. Now if you ask someone else to take the photo, gain limits on how many tries and near enough is good enough.

Basically people taking shot after shot are causing traffic flow problems are around the park. People are blocked from seeing popular places or cough taking their own photograph there. Flows to concessions stands are slowed because people are in the way. It is not one shot with a selfie stick it is hundreds be each selfie stick aficionado.

Realistically the park wants selfie sticks, free advertising as the photos travel around (millions of dollars worth), problem is, they are causing real traffic flow problems as people are not stopping for a say around a minute for a single shot, they are being awkward repeating that shot again and again and again until they get it right and they are not doing just at a couple of locations but all over the place. Also I am sure the park could or already has photo taking concessions. You know pay a buck and get a quick photo emailed to your phone (sneaky huh, money for the concession and email and contact details and photographs on record, taking that into account the can really, really squeeze down the price of the shot).

You can do some smart stuff with the photo taking. Fixed point photo spots, linked to a pre-registered phone. Walk around the park offer of a 10 cent auto shot from a fixed well sited camera, based upon phone proximity (again other revenue opportunities). Toss in a 10 second video for a buck.

Re:What were they thinking?

[smooth wombat]

Someone's hunch finally paid off. According to this BBC article from last year, the number of pedestrians in the U.K. is half that of the U.S.

However, the reason to not jaywalk is simply because the vast majority of people take the longest possible route to cross the street (i.e. diagonal) rather than straight across which exposes you to more traffic and thus a greater chance of being hit.

Dangerous

[Jason Levine]

Selfie sticks are, at best, narcissistic nonsense, but the person who whipped one out on a rollercoaster was risking injury to himself and his fellow riders. How much of a grip can you have on a stick with a weight on the end while hurtling through twists and turns? And if you lose your grip, the best case scenario is that your phone falls and shatters below. Worst case scenario is it hits into someone and injures them. All because he "needed" to get a photo of himself.

Great work on Disney's part shuttig down the ride until that selfie stick was confiscated.

Re:Dangerous

[adamstew]

Having worked at one of these parks, I can speculate as to what happened:

A worker monitoring the cameras on the ride saw the rider with the selfie stick and did as they were instructed, to hit the emergency shut off. This stops the ride, and halts all the cars/trains at their next safety stop point. Once that happens, the only way to get the ride going again is to reset it and do your opening procedures over again. The computer for the ride won't allow the ride to operate unless those checks have been performed and passed. Sometimes it might even require one of the engineers from the park to give their sign-off as well.

But to even begin, you have to evacuate everyone that is currently on the ride. So you have to go out on the track to where they are, release them from the ride, and escort them back to the exit. If there is anyone with mobility issues in any of the cars, that could become a very complicated task. IMO, an hour is very quick to do all of that.

Re:Dangerous

[Bing Tsher E]

While the long recovery process is going on, they should set up a long roped-off corridor running all the way through the park, for the person with the selfie stuck to walk out through. Every other person in the park, particularly those who were inconvenienced and didn't get to ride the coaster that day, could see and/or possibly say a few things to the moron with the selfie stick.

Now if only the US government could do it.

[johnlcallaway]

I appreciate the right of people to look like idiots walking around talking to their camera. Documenting their journey for no one who cares to see.

Why they think that they are what is worth filming is beyond me. Or that talking while filming is a good choice.

My wife and I love to sail, and watch sailing videos on you-tube. The good ones take pictures of things AROUND them, things I actually want to see. They also either do voiceovers post-production, or use a separate microphone to eliminate wind noise.

The rest are mostly just crap, only of value to the people that shot them. Not really worth sharing to the public.

In our motorcycle group, I've witnessed people just vomit their pictures up to the web, with no care taken to edit or even select only the few that are worth posting. No pride in what they have taken, just a regurgitation of what's in their camera.

Selfie sticks are just more of the same. I'll admit they have some valid uses.

Too bad most people appear to be ignorant of what those uses are.

Re:Aww hell.

[Xenx]

For safety.. because honestly, that's totally unsafe. The potential savings from preventing injury is worth more than the earnings from the photos.

Re:$$$ DIsney will have low priced photos to sell

[adamstew]

They already do. https://mydisneyphotopass.disn... Yes, the price is actually $15 per photo, or $200 for unlimited photos.

However, those same people will also take your photos with your own camera as well if you ask them. As will any other employee at the park you interact with.

Re:banning it from the whole park?

[adamstew]

Agreed. Any Disney Park employee will take your photo for you with your own camera, if you just ask them. Even the people they litter around the parks who are paid solely to take your photo so they can sell it to you later for $15 each.

Re:Aww hell.

[Immerman]

>People tend to be quite attached to their arms.

Well, at least until the accident...

In reality though, most rides these days seem to go out of their way to make sure that there's nothing actually dangerous within reach of anyone in the cars. Even if you slip out of your seat and stand up, etc. Sure, you'd have to be a grade-A dumbass to do such a thing, but even grade-A dumbasses getting themselves dismembered on your ride tends to make or bad publicity.

Photos still stuck in...

[unixisc]

Problem is that these photographers are still stuck in the 20th century, and will give you a printout. They may sell you a CD if you pay more. That's my biggest turn-off: I don't keep photo albums any more, and don't want a folder cover for a slaughtered tree photo. I have my tablets, laptops, phones, and can even get an electronic photoframe if I wish where I can store any number of photos w/o taking up more space.

I don't mind paying for the ride photo services if they take electronic photos and then deliver it to us in a way of our choosing - either email, WhatsApp, iMessage or any other medium of our choosing, not theirs.

Re:Photos still stuck in...

[hankwang]

Problem is that these photographers are still stuck in the 20th century, and will give you a printout.

They changed the photo business in the biggest attraction park in the Netherlands, quite recently. They used to charge EUR 10 or so for a single printout. Now they sell you a 4 GB USB stick for EUR 20 which you can load with up to 15 (?) photos and which you can re-use on a next visit until some expiration date. And afterwards, you can use it as any other USB stick. I thought it was pretty reasonable. It was the first time ever I paid for photos in an attraction park.

Re:Photos still stuck in...

[Narcocide]

Yea dude, super old news but the on-ride photos at Disneyland can now be emailed to you. You just type in your email on a touchscreen at the end of the ride.

Re:Aww hell.

[unixisc]

In fact, that would be dangerous too in a roller coaster. You should keep you arms inside the carriage... But a ban on bringing your own arms around on the ride could be a little difficult to enforce. People tend to be quite attached to their arms.

It wouldn't be dangerous per se: it would only make it more likely that the person drops the phone, and depending on the height, end up breaking or otherwise damaging it. Although on the rides, paying attention to the photos as opposed to the rides is more dangerous. If you have someone in your party who's not on the ride, have him/her take the photo from the ground - or preferably, a video, so that he doesn't have to struggle w/ the correct positioning wrt you.

Re:dafuq?

[unixisc]

Fully agree! I had gone for years missing taking pics of myself. But recently, when I had my kid over for vacation and was taking him around, I asked someone to take our pics. Aside from that, in the mall, I managed to take a reasonably good picture of both of us just holding the phone at arms length.

Not strictly for profit

[Varenthos]

Some people are saying that they're only doing this to boost sales of their overpriced ride photos, but that's not the case. I was there last summer and brought a GoPro with me. I had it [securely] strapped on for every non-dark ride that we went on in plain view of the ride operators and not a single one of them said a word to me about it. That got me on-ride video of practically every ride that we went on, and they didn't care in the least. Most theme parks won't let you take a GoPro on the rides no matter how securely it's attached to you, period - including Universal Orlando, which is just a few miles away from Disney. Granted, we also bought their photo package last year, which cost $149 at the time and got us digital copies of every photo that was taken on rides and by the park photographers for the entire time we were there. Compared to the astronomical prices you'd pay for an individual photo, that works out to be a really good deal. Obviously, the ride operators had no way of telling that I had purchased that package, so that wouldn't have been why they let the GoPro slide. Personally, I'm glad they're banning selfie sticks. They tried to accommodate them by only prohibiting them on the rides at first, but people chose to be idiots, so now they're not allowed at all. It's definitely a safety issue. I've never used a selfie stick, so I don't know how securely the mechanism is that holds onto the phone, but when you're talking forces exerted on a roller coaster, would that prevent the phone from flying off? I don't know for sure, but there's a good chance it won't. Now you've got a projectile flying at non-trivial speeds. They tried, and people proved that stupidity will prevail, so now they're not allowed at all. Good riddance.

Re:Aww hell.

[arglebargle_xiv]

Oh, are they for narcissists? I thought they were courtesy items carried by selfie-takers to allow annoyed bystanders to beat them to death. I have personally beaten at least five selfie-takers to death with their own selfie sticks. If you go to the large fountain in Buda Castle, the one that people like to take selfies in front of, and look for the blood stains on the cobbles, that was me.