Sometimes it feels like if we don’t take pictures of an event, then it didn’t happen. Or, more accurately, if it wasn’t posted to Instagram or Facebook, did it really happen? If I didn’t let my diverse following know that I had “Starbucks <3” with my BFF, then how else would they know that I was cool and did cool things? As a society, we’ve become so obsessed with posts and likes and comments. Instead of truly living in the moment, we are constantly trying to document it so we can post it later. Now this a problem perpetuated by social media. The sole purpose of social media is to take away from the moment…whether you’re posting or scrolling. There is an inherent sense of competition associated with social media, only exacerbating the inexhaustible urge to capture said experience. I’m not saying social media is bad. In fact, I think in certain occasions it’s liberating and offers a great platform for emerging artists and others. But I do think there comes a point when it does more harm than good.
Have you ever been to a concert and seen people just listen, simply take it in? No, everyone has their phone out, jumping and angling it to get the best blurry picture of an artist from the opposite side of the venue. Instead of waving lighters, we wave iPhones. Our favorite song is finally played at the concert, and instead of tuning all of our attention, really taking the moment in, the sounds, the smells, the vibrations, the view, we instead fumble with our phones. We unlock it and start frantically searching for Snapchat so we can record, at the very least, 10 seconds of that favorite song, so our Snapchat friends can click through it in a second. Instead of watching that band play our favorite song, we are watching our phone, as we record that grainy, blurry video. We made the decision that recording the song, even if it means watching the performance from the lens of our 4inch phone, at least we would have it in our SIM card forever. But what were we giving up in that moment? In order to achieve that 10-second eternal recording, what did we miss? We may have the recording to watch whenever we want, but will it really mean so much when we don’t remember being there to record it? What good is a picture or a video if we didn’t truly experience the moment we were trying to capture?
When you buy picture frames from a store they usually come with generic photos of kids smiling, strangers posing. You’re supposed to take out these placeholders and put in your real photos. They aren’t your family, or your memories. So you find that concert photo, and slide it into the frame. It’s just, hopefully when you look at that framed photo, it brings back the sounds, the smells, the vibrations, and, most importantly, the view you were trying to capture all along.
