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PrintAmong the shutterbugs
One night a few months ago, I went to a bar with some friends to watch a sporting event. It wasn’t a particularly good game—the team we were rooting for lost—and the bar didn’t even have the kind of beer I like. But I was still at the coolest and most memorable venue in town. I know this because many of the revelers were taking pictures incessantly despite the fact there were no celebrities, special events or even adequate light sources. They were all engaging in the latest, mostly youthful fad: documenting every moment.
In the past few years, as technology has evolved and young people have gotten more self-involved (one theory), the cellphone self-portrait has become a standard part of any night out. Forget cameras, most of which can’t instantly upload whatever picture you’ve just taken of your chin and the top of your friend’s head. To best remember the time you went to that one place and hung out with those people and did that stuff, you need only extend your arm, turn the lens on yourself and click.
Then, thanks to Facebook, all your friends will see that your forehead was really shiny that night. And, also, that you felt “WOO!” about it.
Such excessive use of technology and social networking makes me feel as if I am about 84 years old and yelling at those whippersnappers to get off my lawn.
Worse, I just bought a new phone that makes it easier than ever for me to become one of them.
I had my old phone for four and a half years, which puts it slightly ahead of a butter churn in cell technology. Still, I resisted upgrading. I did not need an app for that. But my keyboard stopped working button by button (my texts looked like clues on the “Wheel of Fortune” board) and I finally caved.
I often used my old phone’s camera, even though the photos looked like something from an Etch-A-Sketch. I had approximately 300 pictures of my dog, one for every adorable pose he struck. More monumentally, when my husband and I eloped this spring, I confirmed the news to the few who knew it was coming by texting a photo of our newly decorated ring fingers. That was fun.
Cellphone photography has many pitfalls, however, as pantsless celebrities and politicians frequently remind us. The extra step of uploading a photo to a computer forces momentary contemplation, the likes of which can be bypassed, unfortunately, with the “send” button on the cellphone.
My friends and I have been documenting the moment, as we call it, for years. Long ago, we learned that the key to a successful self-portrait is a downward angle and outstretched neck to minimize our jowls. We cherish some of our super close-ups taken in Las Vegas, Mexico and at special events. (Not, say, the local sports bar.) And the photos have been just for us, not the hundreds of elementary school friends, former co-workers and second cousins who seem to make up many people’s Facebook friends.
At the sports bar that night, the most remarkable part of the evening was the sheer number of people striking poses. I saw frequent conversations interrupted—just so someone could snap a shot of the conversation that was being interrupted. There is something meta about that, which makes my head hurt.
My fancy new phone seems to want me to do more self-documenting. It has a camera lens on both sides so I can see myself as I pose for my self-portrait—helping me figure out what angle best minimizes jowls.
Thanks to my new technology, I will have a clear picture of my own self-loathing and with fast access to the Internet, so will all of my Facebook friends.
