We used to experience new things and places for the sake of the experience. Something was gratifying about the new and the beautiful. Seeking truth and knowledge, beauty and understanding, were ends in and of themselves. That’s not the case anymore. Now we experience so that we can broadcast the experience. We no longer experience reality. We experience a 1×1″ meta-reality of squares of pixels on smartphone screens.
There are now “pop-up” experiences in which people pay to shuffle through a curated pop-color experience and take selfies alongside audacious displays and quirky elements. The only resemblance that the Museum of Ice Cream has to an actual museum is the gift shop. Its popularity spawned other pop-ups, like Egg House, the Museum of Pizza, and The Happy Place. The attraction of a pop-up experience is not the experience itself. Instead, it’s the allure of broadcasting that you have had an experience. If pop-ups did not permit photography and visitors had to be content with the experience itself, very few tickets would be sold.
Tourism, travel, art, and life are no longer objectives in and of themselves. The experience is no longer the objective of a person. There is now meta-objective only. Tourism, travel, art, and life have become simulacra. If we travel and experience only so others can see we have done so, why travel and experience at all? If you go to a museum simply to take a picture of every exhibit, one after the other, without genuinely experiencing the exhibits, why bother going to the museum? By taking a picture of yourself in front of something only because it is valuable, you transfer the value to you, away from the object itself. Ironically, your action devalues the object.
Watch these videos of people mashing up plates of prepared food before someone can take a picture of it. The photo-takers’ reactions are visceral. Their reality is destroyed. Their food is good as useless. The food was never for consumption. Consumption was a secondary concern. The food was for visual consumption by others. The photo-takers were assaulted by the food smashers. In Manhattan, there’s a crummy Indian restaurant that has become inundated with diners because the entire ceiling of the dining room is draped in tacky chili pepper lights. People are deliberately subjecting themselves to chicken tikka whatever so they can snap a pic of the lights and post them to social media. Food is no longer inherently valuable. It’s only valuable insofar as it can be shown to be an experience to others.
So embarrassing, but I don’t seem to have a photo of the Batak house with the Insta-bait in front of it. I must have been so incensed by the unsightliness that I declined to snap a photo. Please imagine this beautiful house with a tacky Insta-frame in front of it.
By placing the Insta-frame in front of this historical Batak house on Samosir Island in Indonesia, what was a simulation of something cultural, beautiful, and interesting becomes a simulacrum. It’s now a simulation of something that does not exist because culture, beauty, and curiosity are no longer valuable. They are no longer ends in and of themselves, so the house might as well not exist because there is no longer any true first-hand experience of the house. There is only value in showing others that you have experienced something. The house only has a meta-existence. As a visitor to this beautiful house, I literally cannot experience its unencumbered reality. The stupid Insta-frame is in the way. Forever I will remember it, and see it in my photos, with an Insta-reminder in front of it. The Batak house only has a meta-existence. It can only be truly experienced second-hand.
My own meta-trail spans nearly half of my life now. I joined Facebook when I was 16 or 17 (I’m 30 now). I have digital photos saved and backed-up from as far back as 2004. In recent years, I’ve caught myself thinking, ‘Oh, if I go there I may be able to get cool photos for Instagram.’ I recently got back from a wedding in Goa, India, and the photos I took are lackluster. However, the wedding and the setting were not in the least lackluster. The trip and wedding are an experience I will remember and cherish for the rest of my life. Nevertheless, how many people would be disappointed if they came home from their friend’s wedding without aesthetic square photos? Are the bride and groom going to be disappointed that I did not tag any beautiful photos with their hashtag? Was their wedding any less beautiful because one guest’s photos are not beautiful? Is their love not as strong; their union less blessed? Frankly, in the meta-reality we now live in, the answer is an unfortunate yes.
This begs many questions. I take pictures. I write about where I go and what I experience. I post photos on Instagram and share my experiences. I think I can offer a few defensible explanations. For photography, capturing a memory is a nice thing. On my friend’s 30th birthday I was able to post to Facebook some photos from her 18th birthday party. Everyone was surprised, but I think delighted, to relive such a pleasant memory. There is also something beautiful about capturing a moment in time that is aesthetically pleasing. In a purely utilitarian sense, going back and looking at the photo can release those healthy endorphins in the brain. I enjoy looking at photo albums with my grandmother. She had the opportunity to travel to many places I’ve also been fortunate enough to visit. Getting to see the same place through her eyes enhances my own experience, and I also get to see what has changed and what is immutable.
Revisiting old photographs is pleasing and can prompt reflection. Sharing beauty for beauty’s sake isn’t a bad thing either. To have a genuine appreciation for an experience and broadcasting it to other people is artful. In moderation, it can demonstrate appreciation for experiences. Sharing and exchange can also cross-pollinate ideas and inspire creativity in others or ignite in them a desire for new experiences. I’ve found inspiration in the Instagram posts of other people on more than one occasion.
I fear that people are not taking pictures, or even having experiences in the first place, for these reasons at all. I suspect that of the many photos a person takes, a fraction appears on social media accounts and the rest languish in their phone’s storage until the memory limit is reached, at which point they are purged, the experience gone with them. At that point the Batak house only exists second-hand, in a 1×1″ square in the cloud, the image itself obstructed by an Insta-frame. Sure, the house still stands on its original foundation, but who cares that the house is there? A house on an island can’t get likes.
Have you wondered why I don’t take many pictures or bring a camera anywhere? You hit the nail on the head, as usual. It’s about the experience, not recording it. One of the few things I said in college that still makes sens over 40 years later is the idea that I want to experience many new things.
the other day on a ride one of my cohorts was stopping to take photos of admittedly beautiful landscapes. I held back from telling him in 10, 15, 20 years the landscapes will be meaningless, the pictures that he wished he had taken were of PEOPLE, his friends, relatives, co-riders or whomever.
Thanks Dad!