Godwin Frank
Times are always sweet, given the company of one’s best buddies and would still get sweeter, every time, seeing those pictures of togetherness. Walking down the memory lane, recalling those beautiful moments is absolutely blissful! Now, what has this century given us about that? More of a culture, besides machines?
Yes! reigning everywhere are the winking robotic eyes in everybody’s smartphone. Technology has blessed these eyes to be powerful, as well as cheaper today. Any moment is worth capturing and creating those moments have turned out to be the order of the day. They say that life is being added to these moments and can be recreated. Unfortunately, it becomes meaningless in recreating moments as many times, if not lived even once.
There are criticisms today that people are too obsessed capturing those moments on the camera instead of ‘living the moment’ or acting on it. On any funny or rather fabulous, tragic or rather terrifying moment, as many as thousand cameras can be seen flashing, out of the blue, only to win the battle of who is posting first on the social media. The ride for pride doesn’t end there. One keeps counting the “likes” for their video or picture, which still remains as a score to settle among friends. Could this be called as a ‘Tech-savvy spectator mindset’? I don’t yet know!
Now, what one could see is something weird on the behavior part: Crazily addicted to self-photography. I have no idea when young women would stop and raise those phone cams as they pose to kiss the air. I, from behind, have to gaze at, surprisingly: what! for me? Oh, Just another selfie!
Sometime ago, at a mall, I was leaning over the sidewalls taking an aerial view of the ground floor, when a teenaged girl withblack shades on, was walking right at me pointing a walking stick. It looked as though this visual impaired chap with none to accompany, was going haywire and about to trip over. At the thought of an apparent disaster, I approached with every intention to stop her, but only to realise, a little closer and a moment later that the walking stick turned out to be a selfie stick mounted phone cam and alas! the girl was not blind either. What a blooper? Whether she had really taken a selfie or not, she took the mickey out of me, for sure.
Just another time, as I was waiting for my kid’s turn to have his hair-cut done at a salon, this teenage customer before us, was negotiating with the stylist to trim his hair strand by strand, just to look perfect in almost all selfies fired in a span of fifteen minutes, even after his hair-do session was complete. Before I could interrupt his self-admiration episode, the stylist himself stopped to say: “That’s it! for me, the trimmer and the next customer”. The boy sighed and without acknowledging anyone, started to walk off, still firing 360 degree selfies even more rapidly. Is this becoming unimaginably addictive? God forbid!
Just on how many events, have our lads flaunting their daredevil abilities, for a minute footage, were to receive a posthumous “wow.. oh my God.. No!” laud? This is becoming crazy!
