Maybe I’m blessed in that I don’t have many friends on social media who insist on posting selfies. I did at one point, but now they’ve been unfollowed and if I want my fill of narcissism I must actively seek it out.

This selfie craze, though, has far less to do with showing off the new tribal tattoo you inked on your last boys tour to Thailand, and more to do with men saying ‘it’s OK to talk’.

That might need a little unpacking so here’s NewsAU:

The picture is accompanied with the words along the lines of;

“The single biggest killer of men aged under 45 is suicide. In 2014, 4623 took their own life in Australia. That’s 12 men every day, 1 man every two hours! 41% of men who contemplated suicide felt they could not talk about their feelings. Only 20% of people know that suicide is the most likely cause of death for men age under 45. Let’s show men across the world that #‎IT’SOKAYTOTALK take a selfie tag your friends and let’s get the message out.”

Even the likes of Ricky Gervais and Bryan Habana (that top pic) have jumped on board:

The movement started over in the UK, gathering steam after rugby league player Luke Ambler’s brother-in-law committed suicide:

Ambler said his brother-in-law might still be alive if he had somewhere to go to talk about his problems.

“He was at our house on Saturday having a laugh and a joke, he played football as usual on Sunday before spending time with the family and then on Monday night, he killed himself with no explanation,” he said..

“Sometimes men don’t want to talk as they feel ridiculed or think that they’re putting a burden on their families.

“Then if you try talk about it with the lads, it ends up being turned into banter. I began to think that there was nowhere Andy could have gone and spoken to anyone about what was going on.”

I’ll be honest, I’ve yet to see this one really take off in South Africa, but the message certainly rings true.

It is OK to talk – check out LifeLineSA to speak to a professional.

[source:newsau]