Published 2025-06-06
tag(s): music #random-thoughts
I've been mulling some of the ideas for this post for a while, separately. But
reading "Stumble Purposefully" by
n3verm0re pushed me to write it all, connected to a concert. Will quote some sections,
but of course I recommend reading his full post.
The images on this entry come the two Instagram posts I made about the event.
For about three years, Juan and I did our 35~40 minute drive to the Colorado Rapids stadium
with a small selection of rotating playlists. One of them had songs by OK Go, who recently
released a new record and are now touring the US.
I asked him if he was up to attend their show in NYC, he said yes, I got tickets...months went
by and without realizing, the concert was "next week".[1]
The trip from Jersey City to Brooklyn went by quickly. It was a very rainy night.
By the way, the concert was great, I totally recommend seeing this band live. Very fun and electric show. They sound amazing.
I took about 7 photos once we got there. We have more photos playing around with the camera on
the PATH train than of the show itself. This was conscious decision. We didn't check out the
pictures until we were on our way home.
N3verm0re says:
Lest I be accused of being a Luddite, I’m not complaining about taking photos on your phone. It’s more about questioning the value of constantly recording so much in the space of a moment that’s here and gone so fast. Whatever the media, there’s something to be said for allowing yourself to be more present in an experience.
For the last maybe six months, I have been aligned with this point of view, and more aware of
the implications. So during the show, I limited myself to put my phone up here and there, make
a quick snap, and put it back in my pocket.
Around me, a sea of people holding their arms up, making videos, in particular at the start of
each song or on any "big moments".
Sidenote, I have learned to respect that this is how people enjoy their experiences, through
the little screen. I used to be more judgemental...until I realized that there isn't that much
difference between capturing 50 photos or recording a video. 🤣
And hey, maybe it is own limitation that I can't enjoy something while trying to get
"""good""" photos.[2].
Why capture so many photos and videos? How often are people going back on their "digital rolls"? My experience is that not that much, and the social feeds are the equivalent of the photo albums of yore, but not quite, because they are also potentially infinite:
Limitations encouraged conservation, and conservation typically meant that you spent less time sitting with a device in front of your face.
[...]
Previous generations also collected photos in albums, but the limited scale and physical presence made for a different style of consumption, awkward as it was.
We as a species have decided that scarcity makes something valuable.
I know the sum of all the photos in my phone is very valuable to me
(maybe invaluable) but what's the value of single photo? Depends on which one I
guess, but I cannot tell that in advance, with few exceptions.
Memories are can be seen as our brains "recording" things all the time, a constant stream.
But because a moment is associated with an emotion, the value of it is known immediately.
I knew this concert was special because I was sharing the moment with my son. Our little
conversations in between songs, gestures when one of our favorites started, his excited
cheering next to me. Would I have perceived these moments similarly if I was recording them,
or the show?
And the fact that these moments were literally unique (even if we see the same band, it won't
be the same: he won't be 11 again, different songs, etc.), doesn't that make them a perfect 10
in the scarcity scale?
Semi-related to this (and maybe deserving its own post, but here we are) is the idea that everything that exists digitally should be conserved, perpetuated. That not doing it is wrong.
Is that the case? There's been lots of things thorough history that were lost forever. In fact, there's a lot of preservation bias in, for example, the paintings and sculptures in our museums.
Just because we can (potentially) do that with our digital footprint, doesn't meant we should. Maybe it is OK if some things are gone: we already generate more content than we will possible remember, or be able to consume in the future, I think.
There was this group that backed up all Nintendo 3DS digital store games before it closed. My
initial reaction was that they were doing something great. They had to overcome so many
challenges for this noble cause.[3]
But after a while, I wondered, how much of that is worth it, really? How many people are gonna
play some of the most shovelware-ish titles preserved in that collection?
And similarly, how much sense it makes to keep several GBs worth of photos around, without any curation happening? At what point we move from striving to preserve a moment, to capturing for the sake of doing it, as a compulsion of sorts?
