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Al-monitor — Taking pictures with celebrities is gaining popularity in Iran. For fans of the selfie, it makes no difference what the person they’re posing next to is actually famous for: whether artists, athletes, actors or even politicians, those with a big name are caught up in the trend. For those on a hunt for selfies, the only thing that matters is to be pictured with someone famous. The extent of this growing trend has gone to the level of not even leaving celebrities be during funeral ceremonies.
AUTHOR
Saeid Jafari
Indeed, the frenzy has become so intense that both actors and athletes have made pleas through their social media pages for people to refrain from taking selfies during funerals. The latest in a chain of awkward incidents took place at the funeral of prominent Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. The 76-year-old died of cancer in Paris on July 4 and was laid to rest in Iran on July 10. Before his funeral, the public was repeatedly asked to not take any photos with celebrities at the burial, but appeals to respect common sensibilities were for naught. All sorts of selfies with celebrities spilled out on the internet the day of Kiarostami’s funeral.
The selfie trend is not limited to ordinary Iranians and cinema fans. Veteran football coach and former actor Mansour Pourheidari passed away Nov. 4 after being hospitalized several times due to cancer in the past year. While in the hospital, many public figures came to visit Pourheidari, including Abbas Jadidi, who won a silver medal in freestyle wrestling in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Jadidi visited Pourheidari in the days before he passed away, when the former football coach was lying unconscious on a bed at Tehran’s Iranmehr hospital.
The visit stirred major controversy on social media as a photo emerged of Jadidi standing next to Pourheidari’s half-dead body, staring straight into the camera. Amid the outcry, photoshopped images of Jadidi began to flood social media networks in raw mockery of the situation, showing the former wrestler standing next to the burning Twin Towers amid the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the body of Argentine Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara and next to Greek philosopher Socrates as he drank the cup of poison hemlock.
Following Pourheidari’s death, his old football club, Esteghlal, issued a statement and asked people to refrain from taking selfies during his funeral ceremony at Tehran’s Azadi stadium. Yet, as soon as the ceremonies were over, selfies of people with reluctant football players began popping up online.
Layla Ashouri, a sociologist and professor at Azad University, told Al-Monitor, “In general, the [Iranian public’s inclination for] liking of celebrities and their lives has become a trend. People’s inclination to have exclusive photos with celebrities is also nothing new. However, today, with the spread of technology, it is easier to achieve this aim. Therefore, I think the reason it is receiving more attention today compared to the past is due to the expansion of social media networks, communication tools and smartphones, all of which have made it easier to quickly capture photos.”
Indeed, self-photography is nothing new in Iran and certainly not limited to the deaths of Pourheidari or Kiarostami. The act of taking a selfie, and by extension, the desire to have an impact on social media networks, has turned into a phenomenon of sorts.
An example of this was seen on Nov. 14, 2014, when Iranian musician, composer and pop singer Morteza Pashaei passed away. Pashaei died at the young age of 30 after being hospitalized with cancer for several months. In the midst of his illness, the public, and especially his young fans, were seen taking selfies with the sign of the hospital where Pashaei was being treated, or taking photos with their friends in the vicinity of the hospital and posting them on social media — often with misleading captions. This trend forced the singer’s family to appeal to the public to not spread rumors and instead allow news of his condition to either be sourced from them or the hospital.
Speaking to Al-Monitor, psychologist Amir Hossein Maboodi said, “Many of those who enjoy taking selfies with celebrities don’t even know much about the person in question. But because they see that the individual is in the headlines — and in order to not miss the hype — they throw themselves in the middle and try to portray themselves as well-informed fans … what this means is that oftentimes, people ride a wave that has suddenly been created without having any knowledge about the processes involved. Their only goal is to compete with others so that they are not left behind.” In other words, what may be at play may simply be mass-FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).
Iranians are becoming increasingly active on social media, with the head of the country’s digital media center estimating that five to nine hours a day are spent on these networks. Considering the many hours probably spent seeing other people’s selfie habits, the frenzy may not be that surprising. Maboodi told Al-Monitor, “When you are faced with a society that spends about one-third of the day on social media, it is natural that it is constantly seeking to produce the necessary fare that is consumed on these networks.”
