The modern selfie movement might have just peaked.
The selfie movement may’ve hit its apex yesterday. As, definitely, it was been proven that we are now wired to hunt down totally sweet selfie opportunities even in the face of imminent death.
An EgyptAir flight from Cairo to Alexandria, Egypt was hijacked yesterday morning. The hijacker, a man named Seif Eldin Mustafa, was wearing a bomb around his waist and demanded that the flight be rerouted to Cyprus. (He was torn up over his ex-wife, who lives in Cyprus, and wanted to see her.)
When the flight landed, a standoff with the police outside ensued. Some of the 62 people on board were able to leave until only a handful remained. One of them was 26-year-old Ben Innes of Leeds, England.
And he decided this was his chance to take a once-in-a-lifetime selfie.
Quote, “After about half an hour… I asked for a photo with him as we were sitting around waiting. I thought, why not? If he blows us all up it won’t matter anyway.”
Seif was oddly fine with being in the photo, so Ben posed with him and they took a photo together.
Ben has a huge shit-eating grin on his face; Seif, while more reserved, looks awfully happy for a hijacker.
Eventually Ben and the others got off the plane safely when Seif surrendered. It turns out the bomb was fake.
An Egyptian foreign ministry official said, quote, “He’s not a terrorist, he’s an idiot.”
Final note: According to a study, 49 people worldwide died taking selfies between January 2014 and February 2016.
