'Selfies at Funerals' Blogger Retires After Obama's Mandela Memorial Pic

The creator of the viral Tumblr blog Selfies at Funerals says his work is done. Jason Feifer reached “funeral selfies” nirvana when President Barack Obama steadied a cellphone camera for a photo of himself with British Prime Minister David Cameron at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service on Tuesday. 

Feifer’s popular Tumblr account documents images of people (mostly teenagers) illuminating their funeral experiences with smartphone self-portraits. Now that he has added President Obama to his catalog of selfies, Feifer says there’s nothing left for him to accomplish.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt, and President Barack Obama posed for a selfie while sitting in the stands at Soweto Soccer Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the Mandela memorial was held. When Feifer saw the trio’s photo, he immediately posted the picture and declared that it would be his final entry to his site. “Obama has taken a funeral selfie, so our work here is done” he announced. 

Some say selfies are a symptom of the narcissism of today’s generation. Other entries to the site had pictures of teenagers dressed for funerals with accompanying comments describing their emotional states, such as: “Love my hair today. Hate why I’m dressed up #funeral.” Another young lady lamented, “Cried off all my make-up so ew.”

Feifer admitted that he may revive the site one more time if Pope Francis decides to throw his hat into the selfie-ring.