The choice is to take a picture of the eiffel tower as the subject (without you) or a selfie with the eiffel tower in the background. Being into photography somewhat, I've always posted pictures of attractions and never myself. I still found it a bit narcissistic/self indulgent, like "oh I'm travelling to nice look at me" I hardly post anymore

Social media creates the conflict that shames people for documenting their moments. In days before the Internet, there are several instances of people photographing themselves in front of monuments and other things, If you check out "old school cool" on reddit, that becomes apparent (for those who weren't there).

Now, social media pays people for becoming celebrities, so the culture is a lot more staged as a result... It's not the fault of people who otherwise catalogue their activities and travels, so this should always be kept in proper perspective.

Social media rewards vapid, ignorant, and self-obsessed behavior in tech bloggers and politicians as much as it does wealthy teenagers that do nothing more but filming their daily self-absorbed excess within their lifestyles.

Normal and aspiring creators share the photos for those that care in hopes of being discovered, but most of the time they're off the platform's scripts, so they don't get promoted at all by the platform. It's the corporately engineered algorithms that should be blames for presenting personality/brand based (staged) content to most of us on purpose whenever we ritually don't like the content.

If you don't like content that is not based on personality, start clicking "like" on stuff that isn't popular, and not based on the common ego-driven social media tropes...

Also stop supporting things that make social media bias, personality cults, and consumerist/psychological manipulation popular... TikTok literally tells platform users what kind of content to create, that way they shape most of the experience on the platform into most of the repetitive "personality-driven" drivel that we see promoted on it (on purpose) all the time.

I don't even understand why one should be in the picture to begin with.

At that point why even take pictures of landmarks? Unless you have a decent camera and invest the time to learn how to use it, a professional pic of the Grand Canyon or Eiffel Tower is gonna be way better than yours.

Weird take, just because there are people better and have done better means it's pointless to want to take my own photos? There are lots of reasons to take photos, to practise/improve, for something to keep as a memory of the experience, etc

No weirder a take than the parent post rejecting the idea of putting oneself in the picture.

For the same reason you re-implement software that already exists, for example.

Because they want to be. I like rifling through old photos/videos my parents took of themselves and me and my sister and other family members. We get start talking about what/who has changed since then, make fun of old fashion choices, and otherwise reminisce.

Photos can also help jog memory of a specific time and place that you otherwise would not remember.

I just keep them as reminder for myself. I don't post selfies (or any pictures for that matter) in public.

I more often ask myself why people are doing images of only the landmarks (instead of actually enjoying them) when they know just as well that their cameras and photo skills are crappy compared to whatever Google spits out.

I come in, since. I have been traveling with my sister... Do you what I keep it short.

It's just to show off where you have been. Traveling is most of the time to show off. According in the environment I'm in.

Wow, this is a great point that I've never even considering, despite pondering on the topic of the whole instagram culture for a long time.