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Probably something to do with the ubiquity of cameras these days, as well. Anecdatally, I remember when my grandfather bought a Canon A-1 in the late 70s and it
by drivingmenuts 7y ago
Probably something to do with the ubiquity of cameras these days, as well. Anecdatally, I remember when my grandfather bought a Canon A-1 in the late 70s and it was A BIG DEAL. While lots of people had Polaroids and other low-level stuff, this was the equivalent of a prosumer camera, at the time and it was expensive for the time, too.
The slides he took were for his own amusement, and the family’s, just like most other people’s photos. They weren’t shared instantly with the world. That was very much a professional’s conceit.
Now, everyone with a phone has a camera that’s very high resolution and usually internet-connected. The cameras keep getting better (for no good reason that I can tell) while the phone itself remains relatively unchanged. Sure, it can run more apps, so it’s now pretty much a personal computer that incidentally includes a phone,, but because we feel the need to be always connected, we’ve always got a camera.
Consequently, everyone feels the need to overshare every moment of their life, as if they will somehow become important, or that we’ll magically care. It’s too cheap and it’s too easy to spam the world with the beautiful moments that, incidentally, are just like everyone else’s beautiful moments.
My grandfather had a probably almost-unique collection of all 250-plus courthouses of Texas at the time, without competing with anyone to get them, just because he thought it was a neat idea. Now, there are probably hundreds of that collection, produced by ridulously competitive amateurs who want to be Instagram-famous.
- ghaff 7y agoI remember when people would joke about the Japanese taking so many pictures. Today many, perhaps most, put that level of photo snapping to shame.
- dominicr 7y agoI'd agree, it's the ubiquity of digital cameras, plus social media making it normal/expected that people will post photos from a trip. In the past photos were mainly for your own use and you'd talk to people about your trip. Now photos are how people tell each other about what they're doing and where they are. As social media has become competitive for many people that compounds the effect. When I was travelling around SE Asia twenty years ago with a film SLR I was a novelty. At a viewpoint most tourists would take one photo with a point and shoot and I'd take perhaps 2 or 3. The rest of the time was spent looking & exploring.