2033 Electronic Living

I was listening to the radio the other day. I often do so, finding it a pleasant way to fill my head with music when I'm doing something else. Plus, I like hearing the announcements about local events and such that you can't get from other media.

I'm guessing your iPod doesn't tell you about the next local charity fundraiser coming up this weekend.

As I was listening, I heard a new song. In it, the singer, Gavin Degraw, had a line that mentioned flying drones, a neighborhood of clones, and looking at the crowd and they're staring at their phones. And it occurred to me. That's exactly what you see at concerts these days. Folks holding up their phones, badly recording the event.

The evidence of their bad bootleg recordings is glutting the YouTube universe. And it’s very clear evidence that smartphones are not very good recording devices. The video ain't terrible if you can stand the ordinary tremors of a concertgoer being jostled around. But the audio absolutely sucks.

You can't use a variable volume pickup device at a concert. One split second it's recording the song, the next it's reaching with all its electronic sound-seeking might to pick up the snorts and hoots of the reveler down the row.

And worse, it's a bad recording of what ultimately was an non-fully appreciated experience. So I ask. Where were you, the recorder in all this? Were you enjoying the concert? Or holding up your phone in front of your face, obscuring your own view and diminishing your real memory?

All so you can twitter or Facebook your not fully experienced experience to someone not there at that moment and then post the horrible results later for the whole world to ignore on YouTube.

Like you too ignored living.

America, ya gotta love it.