Once, while visiting a real, live castle in Spain, where there were gorgeous gardens and art around every
corner, I watched one woman find the
plainest wall she could, then pose in front
of it for a series of pictures with her Starbucks cup. At a castle! I don’t have a fully
formed opinion about whether a castle
is the place for vanity, but if I do think if
you’re going to be vain there, it should at
least be in front of a decadent backdrop.
Some of the rules around when it’s socially acceptable to take a selfie are clear
cut, while others have blurrier borders.
In the middle of a professional meeting?
Not the time. The few minutes before the
Zoom meeting starts when you’re waiting
for the other people to arrive and realizing you look good in this lighting? Probably fine? A selfie museum? Definitely.
At Youniverse Tucson, you—combined
with backdrops and ring lights set up
specifically for personal photoshoots—
are the art. Started by brothers Ian and
Connor Franulovich, who also own a rage
room called the Breaking Point, this self-serve studio is a place you go to feel good
about how you look, and to document it.
Vanity is the whole point.
I appreciated this clear-cut purpose. No
one in the museum was going to roll their
eyes at me for taking a selfie in a public
place. (Though, I know the decision to
visit a selfie museum might exhibit its
own brand of eye roll. To that, I say: The
world is full of difficulties and horrors,
and sometimes there’s nothing any of us
can do to stop them. If any people can
find a single speck of joy in a harmless
activity like taking a selfie, I hope they
do.)
As a millennial woman, I’ve watched
my selfie skills evolve along with their
rise in popularity. With my first digital
camera in middle school, I took countless crooked, poorly cropped photos of
me wearing a fedora next to my dresser.
These days, on the rare occasion I go
through the trouble to put on lipstick,
I like to commemorate it with a selfie,
simply for my personal records.
I’m also familiar with the reputation
of selfies, which sometimes seem like
they’ve come to represent the vapidity of
a generation. Over the years, we’ve heard
that selfies are a reflection of everything
from eating disorders to narcissism.
I’m not a scientist or a time traveler
or a selfie expert, but I get the feeling if
people 30 years ago, or 500 years ago,
had access to front-facing cameras,
they would have been taking selfies too.
Those with the means were certainly
having portraits painted of themselves, or
snapped in professional studios, after all.
Now, that form of capturing a moment is
more accessible.
And the Franuloviches, who built
all four dozen sets in the museum and
opened it in September 2021, think that’s
great.
“I think everybody should have access
to good pictures of themselves, or their
family and their friends,” Connor told me.
“It’s just a super fulfilling business.”
The basement area of Youniverse features about a dozen horror sets, including
scenes from The Walking Dead, Sweeney
Todd and Saw. The upstairs levels are
more “Instagram Influencer.” Strings of
twinkly lights hang down in an all-white
space. A wall covered in license plates is
right next to another covered in cloud-like
cotton. Take a picture in a jungle, inside
giant Barbie and Ken boxes, or next to a
sign that says “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe”
in neon cursive.
I visited Youniverse with my mom
while she was in town for the weekend,
so most of our individual photos weren’t
selfies in the purest sense of the word.
She got one of me in front of a yellow
backdrop that I think might work as a
professional headshot. I got one of her in
sunflower-bedecked bathtub and told her,
“You look so cute!” She looked at it and
said, “I kind of do!” It was precious to hear
her sound so confident.
The ring lights at every station meant
we could set up our phone timers to get
photos of us together too. It’s not often
we’re both dressed up and able to capture
ourselves in a picture together, so these
are photos I’ll treasure. There’s one of us
holding giant crayons that I am honestly
considering framing, and a few of us
posing for fake mugshots that had us
cracking up.
Viva la selfie, I say! If it’s your thing,
grab a friend, grab your mom, grab your
partner or, of course, just grab yourself,
and spend an afternoon capturing
photos. And don’t, as the neon sign will
remind you when you walk in, let anyone
kill your vibe.
Youniverse Tucson is located at 5750
E. Broadway Blvd, and tickets are $25 per
person. Hours are noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, and the tickets have
no time limit.
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2022.
