VOA常速英语:The Selfie Museum Opened Its Doors To The Public In Los Angeles

We like to think that the selfie is an invention of the 21st century, but it’s not.Founders of the newly-opened selfie Museum in Los Angeles set out to prove that the people’s desire to have pictures of themselves goes back hundreds of years.Roman Emperor, the Mona Lisa, self portraits by Durer and Rembrandt,the black and white photos that adorn our grandparents bedside tables all point to the long historic tradition of the selfie.
我们一直认为自拍是21世纪的发明，但事实并非如此。洛杉矶新开张的自拍博物馆的创始人打算证明人们想拥有自己照片的愿望可以追溯到几百年前。罗马皇帝、蒙娜丽莎、杜勒和伦勃朗的自画像，以及我们祖父母床头柜上的黑白照片都指向了自拍的悠久历史传统。
“I think the realization that selfies are not new.People like to say they’re new, Paris Hilton likes to claim she invented them, and while she may have made them more famous.They’re definitely not new.People have been obsessed with self imagery and taking their pictures or drawing themselves, since people begin drawing on cave walls.People have been drawing human figures, all those things have changed and that entire time is the technique and the technology.”
我并不认为自拍是新事物，通常情况下人们觉得自拍是新兴事物，希尔顿也声称是自己发明了自拍，但她最多算是让自拍变得更潮流。自拍绝对不是新兴事物。自从人类开始在穴居的墙壁上画像，就一直执着于绘制人类自身的形象，人们一直痴迷于自我形象无论是给自己拍照或者画像。人们绘制自己形象的方式被科技改变了，但亘古不变的是人们对自己形象的绘制。
Today you don’t have to waste hours sitting for a portrait, the camera on your smartphone will get you a good quality picture in a split second.Didn’t like it? Simply try again.
今天你不必枯坐数小时只为一张油画绘像，智能手机上的摄像头可以在几秒内拍出一张品质上乘的照片。不喜欢就再拍几张。
“I, to me I take see pictures as capturing memories, and selfies are very convenient,because you can see how the picture is gonna look, before it, before it’s ah, while it’s being taken.”“And it’s also very fun to see you take 70 pictures of yourself to pick that perfect one, because I know we all do it.I definitely do it and when I find that perfect one it always makes me really happy.”
对我而言，我把照片看作是捕捉回忆，而自拍是非常方便的，因为你可以看到照片在它被拍摄之前是什么样的。看一个人在70多张照片里挑出一张最完美的照片这个过程肯定很有趣，我猜大家都有过这样的经历。我确实是这样做的，当我找出最完美的照片时总会很开心。
According to Instagram statistics, one of the most popular selfie spots is the gym.There are more than two million pictures that have a hash-tag gym selfie.Equally popular is taking a selfie in a car or in a bathroom, which has been used as a selfie background more than 1.3 million times.This surprised the exhibition curators so much that they decided to have a special installation in the museum, a bathroom with no mirrors.They hope that makes visitors think about how far the selfie obsession can take a person.
据Ins统计，最受欢迎的自拍点之一是健身房。有超过200万张图片带标签的健身自拍。同样受欢迎的是在汽车或浴室自拍，汽车或浴室被充当自拍背景已经超过130万次。这让展览策划人非常惊讶，因此他们决定在博物馆里安装一个特殊的没有镜子的浴室。他们希望这能让游客们思考自拍的痴迷能给一个人带来多大的影响。
But apart from that museum founders have gone out of their way to provide all sorts of breathtaking selfie backgrounds.Among them the top floor of the tallest building in the world Dubai’s Burj Khalifa and the iron throne from Game of Thrones.It doesn’t really matter that neither of these is real, what matters is that such a selfie will no doubt get its owner likes galore.
但除此之外，博物馆的创始人们还特意提供了各种令人惊叹的自拍背景。其中包括世界最高建筑迪拜的哈利法塔和《权力的游戏》中的铁王座。这两件作品是否真实并不重要，重要的是，毫无疑问它们会让主人喜欢。
Genia Dulot for VOA News Los Angeles
VOA记者珍妮雅，洛杉矶播报。