Last night I had the wonderful opportunity of visiting with one of my best friends who lives a plane ride away. As I got ready to meet her I packed both my video camera and my digital camera. The plan was we could take lots of photos to remember the good times. The end result was despite dragging my camera bag around, I didn't take a single photo.
It seems like my generation has an obsession with documenting our every thought and action. Whether it be in a blog, such as this, Facebook status updates, or billions of pictures and videos. Sometime I wonder if, in our obsession to document, we forget to really experience life. I had a fabulous time with Cody, and if I had been taking photos of us together, I wonder if I would have enjoyed the night as much as I did. While I do miss the opportunity of having new photos to up up on my wall, I don't wish the night had gone any other way.
I wonder the same exact thing. Especially with youtube; you feel the need to record all the fun things that happen.
ReplyDeletePartly, I really like having a video to watch over. I met some nerdfighter friends recently, and a bunch of people took video, and the videos are fun to watch. I think it's fine as long as you're not talking or smiling at a camera the whole time and actually remember to have a good time with the other person/people.
But yeah, if you DO end up just taking tons of pictures the whole time, there probably won't be as many good times! But I think it's fine, in moderation.
@Courtney I agree that in moderation works well, if you can do it. Most of the time I find myself, for example, at a wrock show wanting to record the whole thing, yet also wanting dance. The logical thing is to let someone elce recored and look it up on youtube later. The camera is also my last clutch at being anti-social. Its so much easier to be that kid with the camera who cant talk because they are filming. This is something I try to stay away from. I'm really not that shy of a person, but for some reason talking to people I kind of know, or would really like to be friends with is really hard/awkward for me.
ReplyDeleteA little more on topic, I was at an Alex Carpenter livestream earlier today, an he was commenting how in echo base there is always someone filming, editing, ect. I think living in an environment like that would be so difficult. I came in right as this was being said so I don't know if he was talking in general or just for VEDA. I don't think that their lives are lacking fun or fulfillment, but it must be odd always mapping out your life in terms of what to film.
Yesterday I went to Disneyland and I purposefully decided not bring a camera. I really just wanted to have a fun time. I saved the ticket stub as a reminder. Although my friend did manage to film on her phone two of us having an epic lazer sword battle at night! So maybe that's the key... buy a phone that takes good video...?
I totally understand the concert thing. But really, I almost NEVER rewatch the video I take during the concert, so I stopped doing that.
ReplyDeleteAbout the mapping out of lives thing - I completely agree. It does seem very odd. We are a strange generation... think about it. We are all looking for people to hear our thoughts, words, etc, to the point where we feel we almost can't keep anything private. Take twitter for example. We'll tweet practically everything; random thoughts, complaints, funny things that happen throughout the day...
It's weird to think how the internet has changed the way we communicate in general.
It really makes me wonder what the youth 50 years from now will think about our generation... and, I mean, will they all be telepathic and everyone gets feed updates in their head. O_O WILL PRIVACY EVEN EXIST!?!
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