#SelfieWithASailor: Fleet Week Invaded NYC—and Your Instagram

May 26, 2015, 10:30am

On Sunday afternoon in Times Square, two tourists approached a man in uniform and asked if they could take a picture together. He throws an arm over one’s shoulder and unfolds the fingers of his big red paw; he’s a bootleg Elmo impersonator, and he charges five dollars per photo. Behind them a sailor smiles awkwardly on the corner—he looks relieved when I ask if I can take his picture.

Although my impression of Fleet Week is mostly based on an episode of Sex and the City, it turns out the event was initially conceived by the Roosevelt administration in 1935. The idea was to drum up a little nationalist sentiment among an American public who remained obstinately apathetic to the political thunderclouds in Europe and Asia. Over a hundred ships and four hundred aircraft descended on San Diego in a dazzling military spectacle.

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Last year, the NYC Fleet Week introduced the #SelfieWithASailor initiative, an attempt to bring the festival into the digital age. This year, they brought it back. The premise is simple: Take a selfie with a sailor and post it online. What intrigues me, however, is the way these servicemen and women get swallowed up by New York City. They become another attraction in the cutthroat market of the Big Apple’s iconography.