I went to the Zoo recently and I couldn’t believe how many people immediately whip out their phones to film the animals in the exhibit.
Like, if looking at images of animals on your phone was anywhere near as enjoyable as seeing them in person, why even pay to come to the fucking zoo!?
The animal you are looking at is already existing within a dead facsimile of its actual environment! It’s already like looking at an image!
Do people really go back and look at these images and videos and feel the same feeling as when they’re looking a marmoset of exotic bird right in the eyes a few feet away from them?
It feels like we’ve all become trained to whip out our phones and start filming the moment anything interesting starts happening. The way everyone prefers this mediated experience to just being in reality experiencing art or living things or a concert or whatever just makes me feel kind of bleak. To me this is a great example of what is meant when we talk about Alienation.
Anyone else agree or am I being a grumpy geriatric shaking my fist at the kids on my lawn?
Your post doesn’t mention the “I want to share it with my friends” psychology
Fair point but it still feels like it’s the willingness to remove yourself from the present experience in favor of sharing a cheap and unimpressive facsimile with some theoretical other person that weirds me out
Once we replace our eyes with cameras we can have the best of both worlds!
And for only $99.99/mo they won’t take away your ability to see. A great deal!
I suppose. I would like to take a picture of an animal making a funny face, send it to a friend (“this is u”), and put the phone back on my pocket.