June 23rd, 2012
Dick P.
NewsRescue[Op-Ep]- It’s a generation that is obsessed with themselves. Thanks to digital photography, memory cards and electronic uploading and sharing.
We would never have been so obsessed with taking pictures if we were still in the Kodak and Agfa film era, when you had to first buy a roll, then insert it properly into a plastic camera. Next, wind it up to number 1 or was it number zero, when you want to get more shots out of the roll. And then, of course there’s the buying actual batteries that don’t recharge.
Next we snap, carefully rewind or if lucky, have the camera do that for us and take the film to a developer.
And then we hope and pray we did not expose the film at some point, destroying all, or most of the shots.
Today, it’s so simple, infact, too simple, to snap and share and then with instagram and facebook upload; – we quickly satisfy our narcissistic urges by sending these to all who wish to see and those who don’t.
Ladies these days take an average of 20 shots every day and night out. That’s almost an entire reel of film!
A shot while dressing up in front of the mirror, no two shots there. A shot while leaving the house. Three shots in the car. A shot at the door of the lounge or restaurant. A single shot while seated, a group or company shot. A shot of the meal, a shot of the dessert.
It goes on and on, almost endlessly.
Hey, can you see me? I thought you were having dinner with me, not with your iPhone!
And the next time you go out, it’s the same routine all over again.
Bu what happened to the last ones? You haven’t grown much older since? Or is it the new outfit? You didn’t sew that…so that’s not what you are showing off. Perhaps you are showing off how the dress fits you.
And the shots of the meals? I always think we can easily get the best shots of the restaurant dishes on their website. Do you really have to interrupt our dinner with the flashing lights?
Now if you cooked and prepared the meal, I wouldn’t complain about you taking pictures of your delightful cooking. But chef Boyadee’s cooking? Why do we need pictures of that?
To show what is about to enter your belly? Or it’s a shared sneak prev. of ‘how you are living?’
Call me old fashioned, but I simply can not understand this infatuation with self and with the digital camera.
I think it is a sickness and it is taking away more and more of our selves.
There is nothing left to the imagination, memories are all too real and too present. They are up in our faces.
Challenge my brain, I can remember how gorgeous you looked.
Captivate me with a verbal description of the atmosphere.
Don’t put that phone in my face and flip through 30 pictures from last night. I don’t really care to see all that.
Facebook timeline, which I have refused to upgrade to despite electronic bullying every time I try to access something from a friend, has perfected this too-real memory hosting.
I see your life time-line. I see when you were slim, wrinkle-less and realize how you have changed.
I can almost click a button on facebook now and fast-forward till you die. Bye!
Yes, the present matters less with all these pictures of the past. The past and the complete record of the transformations simply prompts my mind to continue the trend, into the future till the death.
It’s like I have this projectile, this complete video of the ball kicked up into the sky.
My brain can only naturally picture, as Isaac Newton did, how the ball that went up will continue till it comes down.
You went out with me today, not to enjoy the day with me, but to create a memory, a digital memory to save in timeline of this day.
Albert Einstein said ‘time is relative’. I never understood that so well as I do now.
With your insta-memory, I now feel like I am looking at the clock, watching it’s every single tick as time goes by.
Keep the camera, I’m keeping my sanity.