James Weir: The gross selfie faux pas that needs to stop - put the toilet lid down

Even Kim Kardashian has committed the faux pas. Photo / Instagram

COMMENT:

It's hard to keep up with the public service announcements beaming out across the country each day but there's one the community needs to hear and action immediately: Close ya damn toilet lids.

With the rise of selfie culture over recent years, toilets have crept into the foreground by constantly being in the background.

It's bad enough they're appearing in bathroom selfies. But the fact most of these toilets have the lid open is proof our standards in society have slipped.

Wealth and social status have nothing to do with it. Toilet photobombing can be found on even the classiest of Instagram feeds. Demi Moore is the latest example.

In 2020 we accept toilets in the background of photos like it's normal. Photo / Instagram

She posted a casual photo this week taken in her makeshift office that happened to be in the bathroom of the Idaho home she has been isolating in.

It's honestly a lot to wrap your mind around.

We could analyse so many elements of this photo – like the fact her bathroom features brown shag carpet. It's a bacterial breeding ground. My worst nightmare would be touching that carpet and feeling a damp patch. But the most shocking element is the open toilet in the background.

Bathroom selfies are a modern day phenomenon and are here to stay, so our living environments need to accommodate this and evolve. The Block should actually take this into account when judging the bathroom challenges. Has it been designed in a way where occupants can take a bathroom selfie without a toilet appearing in the background? Shaynna Blaze would deduct points and tear strips off some bogan couple because they didn't have the forethought to conceal the toilet behind some kind of stylish feature screen.

Even Kim Kardashian's toilet has made a cameo. Photo / Instagram

It's shocking that some people are going in the complete opposite direction and making their toilet a feature. Over on those Kmart mum Facebook groups, "toilet set ups" have become a trend. Mums are jazzing up their toilets with stands and shelves and all sorts of rubbish hanging off the wall before proudly posting the photographic disaster on the internet.

Online dating culture has a lot to do with the rise of toilet photobombing and why we've become accepting of it. You can't log onto a dating app without being spammed by a stream of the incriminating selfies. A toilet photobomb is the ultimate way to ruin a racy pic.

A racy pic sans toilet is tasteful. Elegant, even. With the right pose, you could submit it for the Archibald Prize. Add some natural light and people may even ask if Annie Leibovitz shot it. Fail to crop out a rogue toilet and it's nothing but a visual assault.

And while you're improving your bathroom selfie game, please wipe the toothpaste splatters off the mirror.