Parents tried to protect him from his curse

My theory is that either Simon or his entire family has a curse in regards to cameras. Rather than telling Simon WHY he couldn't film anything or get filmed, they simply forbade it and he grew up thinking they didn't care about him. They probably didn't let him have a camera growing up and then he became obsessed.

Unfortunately it still doesn't explain the 'rules' of who dies and doesn't. The love theory doesn't stand. He hates himself which is why he was afraid to be filmed because under this theory, he would soon die. He loses confidence in this theory however. The only two faces that never become skewed are his own in the mirror and Rich's. I'd like to have confidence that the writer knows the rules he created even if we don't as an audience, but I'm uncertain that's true.