Man clips tourists' selfie sticks to increase human interaction

How angry would you be when you are barely milliseconds away from clicking a perfect photo and someone clips your selfie stick -- a comedian in the US is doing just that contending that he is aiming at increased human interaction.

A videographer and stand-up comedian Buddy Bolton recently posted a video online in which he was seen using pruning shears to chop selfie sticks of tourists as they posed for photographs at major sightseeing destinations in Manhattan, in New York.

Most of these victims were stunned, a few cursed and one even chased the stick-clipping bandit, who ran away immediately after striking, DNAinfo New York reported on Saturday.

"In the old days, you would talk to someone and say, hey can you take a picture of me and my wife," Bolton was quoted as saying.

"And now there is just less and less human interaction... so we aim at increasing the human interaction," he said.

Bolton said he wanted to hit people with a selfie stick but that would have been too violent for a prank.

"A clipper just seemed a nice way to make a mockery of how asinine it is and how silly people look walking around with a stick," he added.

The video was mostly unstaged and the victims whose selfie sticks were chopped were given $10 replacement sticks off camera.

"We thought it was good-hearted ... it was not our intention to be really mean. Unfortunately, a couple of people were upset," the comedian said.

Bolton said he did not choose tourists as his victims but whoever used a selfie stick was subjected to his prank.

--IANS

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