Not useless but it went extinct in my part of the world. I can't remember when I saw one in Europe. People shot selfies with their arms again. Is it still a thing somewhere else?

It's a thing in the U.S. still but a lot of places have banned them. Where you do see the selfie stick sometimes is skiing, but I think they are using an actual gopro product for that mostly.

Found it

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32336808

It was in the book of 101 Un-Useless Japanese Inventions.