As the days in the hot July summer sun began to wane into the lazy dog days of August, I knew it could only mean one thing: the season was upon us. Lollapalooza season, that is. If you’re unfamiliar with “Lolla”, it is a three-day music festival featuring a myriad of artists and bands in Chicago at Grant Park. Crop tops are purchased, fanny packs are resurrected from the shadows of Lolla’s past, and water bottles are filled to the brim with…well, water. And there I was, a rising college sophomore sitting on the precipice of my third appearance at this weekend of claustrophobia and dehydration. This time around, I felt especially exuberant to embark upon one of the best weekends of the summer with six of my friends, as we elected to forgo the hullabaloo of the train commute and stay downtown at a hotel. A weekend to remember, of that I was certain.
As our crew entered through the hallowed metal gates, we decided unanimously to commence our weekend with partial hearing loss a “bang” by making our first destination Perry’s stage. If you are blissfully unaware of what “Perry’s” is, consider it ratchetry personified—a breeding ground for particularly inebriated concert-goers, asphyxiating mosh pits, and the very place that, for awhile, I thought I would take my last sweet breath on this Earth. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and perhaps a little too forgetful of Perry’s wrath, our group braved the heat and weaved our way into the fiery pit of Lollapalooza EDM.
After about half an hour of what I’m sure was irreversible damage to my eardrums, our crew came to our impaired senses and decided we should exercise some degree of self-preservation and mobilize to a tamer destination. I unslung my faded blue drawstring backpack to pull out my phone to check the time. As I rifled through it’s contents, I found no trace of my beloved gold iPhone 5S. Panicked, I emptied out my bag on the sidewalk, searching furiously for the blue and pink of my Speck case. It was then I came to realize the worst: a jagged laceration on the top of my bag. I cringed in horror as I came to the realization that someone had slashed my bag and snatched my phone—an offense that the Verizon guy I would see three days later cleverly called “Apple Picking”, and Lolla being infested with unknowing suburban kids was the sly thief’s ripest orchard.
Now, I wouldn’t consider myself addicted to my phone, but I certainly am dependent upon its functions. I like to text my friends, peruse my social media feeds, take pictures, and listen to music when I run. For whatever reason, however, I felt completely and utterly devastated in this moment of technological loss. Why did I feel like this? I knew it was just a thing that could be replaced, but why was I so inordinately upset over something so trivial? Was I really that reliant on a material possession?
That night, I called my parents for counsel. While they weren’t too happy with me, they advised that I take this misfortune and morph it into something positive, and spend time actually enjoying myself instead of incessant texting and picture-taking. “It may not seem like it right now, but this is actually a good thing,” they promised. With their words, I resolved that I would put my negativity aside and face the weekend without it. I already invested the money that I had worked hard to earn for this weekend’s expenses, and I concluded that a thief could steal my phone, but they could not steal my weekend.
At first it was uncomfortable. I completely relied on the company of my friends, as we could not afford to be separated for even a minute in a crowd of thousands. I began to feel rudderless during moments of downtime between sets when my friends were scrolling silently through their screens. In order to pass the time, I began people watching as I absorbed the eccentric hustle and bustle that was whirling around me. As people sat beside me deciding between Valencia and Mayfair on their Instagram filters, I was forced to observe the spectrum of Technicolor unfolding before me. Much to my own surprise, I actually started to enjoy taking in the vibrant environment of the festival.
As the day chugged on, I found myself becoming increasingly observant. More present. Maybe this is what I would feel like if I did yoga? Either way, I felt a newfound sense of invigoration—a paradox of connectivity. What struck me as most jarring, however, was when people whipped out their phones to record an artist’s performance. Whether it was a ten-second Snapchat or a full-length video, people were glued to their screens, reaching their phones over the crowds to capture the moment on camera perfectly.
But is it really the perfect moment through an iPhone screen?
It may seem like a sophomoric realization, the one I had right then and there in that hot and sweaty crowd at Lollapalooza. But there was something genuinely unsettling about witnessing thousands of glowing phones around me, capturing for it’s owner what was right before their very eyes. Why must we feel the need to preserve a moment in which we are not necessarily even “present”?
Don’t get me wrong—having my phone stolen was not ideal. At first, it felt debilitating to be without the one device that would keep me connected amid a crowd of 100,000 rowdy festival-goers. However, as time wore on, it granted me a sense of redefined liberation. Oftentimes, we may find ourselves slaves to technology—I know I do. But it shouldn’t take away from our interpersonal experiences, but rather enhance them. While it’s nice to snap a few photos for posterity, we must be mindful that these pauses in reality should not replace our physical experiences. Take it from this sucker who got her phone snatched right from her bag—you never know what you might miss.
