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When I was young in the 90's we used to go to music festivals. It was nice to be with your friends, just relax and enjoy some music. Years ago I went back to t

When I was young in the 90's we used to go to music festivals. It was nice to be with your friends, just relax and enjoy some music. Years ago I went back to the same festival, and what I notice what changed immensely was that everyone was taking pictures and selfies with smartphones. It was so weird to see. Plus, what used to be a Rock festival was now a Pop festival (everyone needed to be there). Somehow nowadays, you don't only enjoy yourself, but you have to broadcast it that you're enjoying yourself. For me, that takes away a big part of the enjoyment. I'll stop my old man's rant now ;).

ravenstine 4y ago
Same usually happens at any metal show I go to. I remember when people actually immersed themselves in the experience. Now they stand completely still, mouth a gape, and film the whole thing on their phones as if no one else will do so and upload it to YouTube later. Given how supposedly unhappy people are, I think society really needs a spiritual awakening.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  I do this at concerts, but mostly because I feel like a lot of venues I go to are flat, and as a short person there is almost always a sea of taller people blocking my eye-level view.
  - withinboredom 4y ago
    Ugh, you just reminded me of a random concert in a park I went to a few weeks ago. Everyone was just chilling on their blankets watching the show. As more and more people showed up, they just started standing around all the people with kids on the blankets, blocking our view. We ended up leaving pretty early because it became pointless once people literally started standing on our stuff. I swear, venues oversell things to the point where it is too crowded to actually enjoy it.
- slothtrop 4y ago
  I go to a lot of metal shows and don't share that experience. There's always a pit. Maybe one or two guys taking a picture/video, but that's it.
  - Handytinge 4y ago
    Exactly right. Nobody's got their phone out whilst a wall of death is forming!
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  well the out of touch thing is not realizing that theyre broadcasting to their friends, its not about pretending that they’ll watch it at a future date the interactivity is leaps and bounds higher and more fulfilling I don’t record more than a couple 15 second videos, at an event, choosing to consciously “be present”, but from those broadcasts I get friends trying to find me there, I get introductions to their friends, I get dates from people that want to share in the energy at a future event, I get hookups - I sold an extra ticket at a festival by posting w/ the right hashtag and the girl was attractive and liked me and I hung out with her squad all day and into the morning There was nothing unhappy about it in a big crowd everyone is doing this at different intervals even another commenter’s interpretation about “broadcasting that you’re having fun means youre not having fun” is way off the mark, its a beacon for other people to come be part of the fun. at least there is some self-awareness here about old man yelling at clouds. people here are extrapolating reasons that are wildly incorrect, instead of just nonjudgementally asking people to get a wide variety of modern answers.
googlryas 4y ago
What percentage of the time at the festival do you think the average person was taking selfies?
- rumblerock 4y ago
  While the percentage of time is surely low, the high concentration of people per area means the frequency with which you encounter it can be quite high. I personally don't care much about being in random people's selfies, but having to constantly dodge people taking random pictures is definitely an annoyance when you're already trying to navigate a crowded space.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    The easiest thing to do would be not care if you are in a random person's selfies at some big public event. They surely don't care.
majormajor 4y ago
My "old man rant" is that I sometimes see photos from 10, 20 years ago that bring back memories that otherwise I hadn't thought of in years. It makes me wish I had more photos from the 80s and 90s too, in the pre-digital years.
- slothtrop 4y ago
  I don't like photos of my past, just everyone else's.
slothtrop 4y ago
Fortunately this doesn't happen much at small-venue metal shows.
kalleboo 4y ago
I live in Japan now and live performances tend to have somewhat strict no photography rules. I believe the same is true in Korea/with K-pop acts. Most foreigners are pretty taken aback when they encounter this, but I really like it. Not only do you not have to stare at everyone else's smartphone screen but it also removes any temptation to yourself to "preserve a memory"
- woweoe 4y ago
  The reasoning is just based on super strict copyright rules though.
- decafninja 4y ago
  First culture shock when I visited Japan in 2015 was when I pulled out my phone to take a snapshot of the airport express train arriving. Every Japanese person in my line of sight either darted away or covered their faces with their hands. That day I learned it was taboo to take snapshots like this, even if your subject is some inanimate object like a train if there are people around. Seems this is Japan specific, as I have not encountered this in Korea or Hong Kong.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Really? I can't say I have ever noticed this in Japan and I've been there a number of times. And pre-digital it was Japanese who were notorious for snapping pictures of anything and everything.
  - nicbou 4y ago
    In Germany it's also frowned upon, but not taken this seriously. In any case people won't shove a smartphone in your face while arguing with you. We have fairly strict photography laws so people don't get their likeness shared without consent.
- ghaff 4y ago
  In the US, live theater usually has very strict rules about any sort of recording. I've seen ushers on Broadway rushing to block people from even taking a picture of the empty stage before a show or shooting a selfie at curtain call. Live popular music is more of a mixed bag.
SomeBoolshit 4y ago
But wouldn't you like to watch all those concerts again today, just to reminisce? We have the technology now and I can't really fault people for using it. Selfies I could go without, especially when the subject of the photo is something else and the only reason for putting yourself into the shot is proving it really happened.
- elzbardico 4y ago
  I call this FOFI - Fear of Forgetting It Like its relative, FOMO, a perfectly irrational feeling.
  - HKH2 4y ago
    Yeah, I think it's impossible to encapsulate feelings anyway. I think we think we remember how something feels, but we just simulate it on demand, and there's no way to tell the difference.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ninth_ant 4y ago
  In my experience, photos taken with the intent to remember an event later are more interesting when they have people in them. I don’t feel like I need to “prove” I attended an event but years later it makes the recollection more visceral — at least for me.
- kuratkull 4y ago
  Is this something you actually do? Watch a crummy video of a song you know, with the sound distorted to cracks and pops? I never understood the appeal, knowing I was there is, and should be, enough. Also, someone remembers your phone in front of their view.
  - pdntspa 4y ago
    This is why everyone should follow the lead of Dead & Company and offer places to patch in to the sound system so people can record high-quality bootlegs
akudha 4y ago
Some years ago I went to see the ball drop at NYC. It was a terrible experience. Every single person I saw had their phone out, the only thing I could see was flashes, everywhere. Nobody was seeing anything with naked eyes, just through their cameras. It was weird. If you live/work in tourist spots, you can’t walk 10 feet without getting interrupted by a tourist taking their stupid, duck face picture. It is near impossible to enjoy anything in peace these days. I blame it all on social media. I can’t wait for all social media to die, but that’s not gonna happen, Is it?
- xwdv 4y ago
  Social media is dead. We’re just burning in the hell of vapid content feed machines with ads interspersed.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  How does it interrupt you for someone else to be taking a photo of themselves?
  - GameOfFrowns 4y ago
    >How does it interrupt you for someone else to be taking a photo of themselves? Blocking one's path for once, even more so with telescope sticks and of course taking pictures with one in the background without consent. I live near one such touristic area where there's a rather narrow sidewalk. In the summer it is like running the gauntlet. I'm too often too nice by first letting people finish their posing and taking pictures, only that frequently even 5 selfies seem not enough because they didn't get that perfect angle right for the 'insta'.
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      They’ve got as much right to be there as you do! > taking pictures with one in the background without consent They don’t need your consent!
      - 4y ago
ivanche 4y ago
Another old man's rant - if you need to broadcast you're enjoying, you're not really enjoying.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  I don't broadcast anything either, but I send a lot of photos and sometimes short videos to my elderly relatives, who actually like them. For example, they loved a short video of an elephant shower in a ZOO. Unfortunately, this requires the same hardware as a broadcast, so it would be covered by the same no-pictures policy.
christophilus 4y ago
It’s not a totally new phenomenon, but it’s gotten much worse. I remember as a kid, my mom would interrupt $enjoyable_experience to take photos for the family album. It would totally take me out of the flow as a kid and is why most of my childhood pictures are of me with an annoyed expression. In fact, most of my adult pictures feature the same expression for the same reason. Only, now my wife is the one with the camera.
- mattpallissard 4y ago
  Are you me?
- andrepd 4y ago
  How come taking a picture of you playing in the yard "takes you out of the flow"? x) You make it sound like you were writing assembly or something. For me, I look back on pictures and tapes of my childhood with joy. I'm glad my parents recorded those things and I can go back and see how things were when I was 3 or 8 or 12.
  - xenocratus 4y ago
    Not OP, but had/have the same. It's because the person taking the photo doesn't want to capture the moment, they want to capture a choreographed moment, where everyone is looking at the camera, smiling etc. The same photo as everywhere else, but there.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    Not him but "Wait wait, do that again so I can get a picture of it! No no you were over here, don't face this way do what you were doing before just pretend I'm not here. What's wrong, you were having fun a minute ago stop pouting!" Camera people can be really obnoxious like this, particularly to young children who haven't yet learned the value in humoring their parents. I always hated it when my mother got out the camera. If she had stood back and taken pictures without trying to arrange everything for the 'perfect' pictures it wouldn't have been such an issue. But that's not how it ever went.
zwaps 4y ago
I like to take a couple of photos for my album when I am doing some activity I'd like to remember (say, visiting a place on vacation). It's pretty important to me. However, I dislike two things 1.) Doing it for every small activity 2.) Broadcasting it on social media For 1.), I find that I don't really benefit from every walk around town or whatever in my albums. It's more enjoyable to remember significant moments - and there are quite enough I think. For 2.) I find that to find a good representation of what is happening, I need to alter my behavior. Instead of taking two to five pictures, I need to take videos and hundreds of pictures etc. As others have mentioned, this kills the actual thing. Instead of "I visited place X and did Y", it becomes "I took photos and videos at place X pretending to do Y". So the sweet spot is in between. I am very happy to have taken some photos - even selfies - in the past, and I wish I would have taken slightly more photos (or better ones, or videos) in the past, before we had such nice phone cameras. Pictures are great to remember moments. For that, we need enough pictures of these moments - but we also need to have made memories. We need to have experienced the actual thing. Pictures that go on social media are marketing. They have a different purpose.
flipchart 4y ago
Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1314/ https://xkcd.com/1314/ :)

ravenstine 4y ago

Same usually happens at any metal show I go to. I remember when people actually immersed themselves in the experience. Now they stand completely still, mouth a gape, and film the whole thing on their phones as if no one else will do so and upload it to YouTube later. Given how supposedly unhappy people are, I think society really needs a spiritual awakening.

bobthepanda 4y ago
I do this at concerts, but mostly because I feel like a lot of venues I go to are flat, and as a short person there is almost always a sea of taller people blocking my eye-level view.
- withinboredom 4y ago
  Ugh, you just reminded me of a random concert in a park I went to a few weeks ago. Everyone was just chilling on their blankets watching the show. As more and more people showed up, they just started standing around all the people with kids on the blankets, blocking our view. We ended up leaving pretty early because it became pointless once people literally started standing on our stuff. I swear, venues oversell things to the point where it is too crowded to actually enjoy it.
slothtrop 4y ago
I go to a lot of metal shows and don't share that experience. There's always a pit. Maybe one or two guys taking a picture/video, but that's it.
- Handytinge 4y ago
  Exactly right. Nobody's got their phone out whilst a wall of death is forming!
yieldcrv 4y ago
well the out of touch thing is not realizing that theyre broadcasting to their friends, its not about pretending that they’ll watch it at a future date the interactivity is leaps and bounds higher and more fulfilling I don’t record more than a couple 15 second videos, at an event, choosing to consciously “be present”, but from those broadcasts I get friends trying to find me there, I get introductions to their friends, I get dates from people that want to share in the energy at a future event, I get hookups - I sold an extra ticket at a festival by posting w/ the right hashtag and the girl was attractive and liked me and I hung out with her squad all day and into the morning There was nothing unhappy about it in a big crowd everyone is doing this at different intervals even another commenter’s interpretation about “broadcasting that you’re having fun means youre not having fun” is way off the mark, its a beacon for other people to come be part of the fun. at least there is some self-awareness here about old man yelling at clouds. people here are extrapolating reasons that are wildly incorrect, instead of just nonjudgementally asking people to get a wide variety of modern answers.

googlryas 4y ago

What percentage of the time at the festival do you think the average person was taking selfies?

rumblerock 4y ago
While the percentage of time is surely low, the high concentration of people per area means the frequency with which you encounter it can be quite high. I personally don't care much about being in random people's selfies, but having to constantly dodge people taking random pictures is definitely an annoyance when you're already trying to navigate a crowded space.
- googlryas 4y ago
  The easiest thing to do would be not care if you are in a random person's selfies at some big public event. They surely don't care.

majormajor 4y ago

My "old man rant" is that I sometimes see photos from 10, 20 years ago that bring back memories that otherwise I hadn't thought of in years. It makes me wish I had more photos from the 80s and 90s too, in the pre-digital years.

slothtrop 4y ago
I don't like photos of my past, just everyone else's.

slothtrop 4y ago

Fortunately this doesn't happen much at small-venue metal shows.

kalleboo 4y ago

I live in Japan now and live performances tend to have somewhat strict no photography rules. I believe the same is true in Korea/with K-pop acts. Most foreigners are pretty taken aback when they encounter this, but I really like it. Not only do you not have to stare at everyone else's smartphone screen but it also removes any temptation to yourself to "preserve a memory"

woweoe 4y ago
The reasoning is just based on super strict copyright rules though.
decafninja 4y ago
First culture shock when I visited Japan in 2015 was when I pulled out my phone to take a snapshot of the airport express train arriving. Every Japanese person in my line of sight either darted away or covered their faces with their hands. That day I learned it was taboo to take snapshots like this, even if your subject is some inanimate object like a train if there are people around. Seems this is Japan specific, as I have not encountered this in Korea or Hong Kong.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Really? I can't say I have ever noticed this in Japan and I've been there a number of times. And pre-digital it was Japanese who were notorious for snapping pictures of anything and everything.
- nicbou 4y ago
  In Germany it's also frowned upon, but not taken this seriously. In any case people won't shove a smartphone in your face while arguing with you. We have fairly strict photography laws so people don't get their likeness shared without consent.
ghaff 4y ago
In the US, live theater usually has very strict rules about any sort of recording. I've seen ushers on Broadway rushing to block people from even taking a picture of the empty stage before a show or shooting a selfie at curtain call. Live popular music is more of a mixed bag.

SomeBoolshit 4y ago

But wouldn't you like to watch all those concerts again today, just to reminisce? We have the technology now and I can't really fault people for using it. Selfies I could go without, especially when the subject of the photo is something else and the only reason for putting yourself into the shot is proving it really happened.

elzbardico 4y ago
I call this FOFI - Fear of Forgetting It Like its relative, FOMO, a perfectly irrational feeling.
- HKH2 4y ago
  Yeah, I think it's impossible to encapsulate feelings anyway. I think we think we remember how something feels, but we just simulate it on demand, and there's no way to tell the difference.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ninth_ant 4y ago
In my experience, photos taken with the intent to remember an event later are more interesting when they have people in them. I don’t feel like I need to “prove” I attended an event but years later it makes the recollection more visceral — at least for me.
kuratkull 4y ago
Is this something you actually do? Watch a crummy video of a song you know, with the sound distorted to cracks and pops? I never understood the appeal, knowing I was there is, and should be, enough. Also, someone remembers your phone in front of their view.
- pdntspa 4y ago
  This is why everyone should follow the lead of Dead & Company and offer places to patch in to the sound system so people can record high-quality bootlegs

akudha 4y ago

Some years ago I went to see the ball drop at NYC. It was a terrible experience. Every single person I saw had their phone out, the only thing I could see was flashes, everywhere. Nobody was seeing anything with naked eyes, just through their cameras. It was weird. If you live/work in tourist spots, you can’t walk 10 feet without getting interrupted by a tourist taking their stupid, duck face picture. It is near impossible to enjoy anything in peace these days. I blame it all on social media. I can’t wait for all social media to die, but that’s not gonna happen, Is it?

xwdv 4y ago
Social media is dead. We’re just burning in the hell of vapid content feed machines with ads interspersed.
chrisseaton 4y ago
How does it interrupt you for someone else to be taking a photo of themselves?
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago
  >How does it interrupt you for someone else to be taking a photo of themselves? Blocking one's path for once, even more so with telescope sticks and of course taking pictures with one in the background without consent. I live near one such touristic area where there's a rather narrow sidewalk. In the summer it is like running the gauntlet. I'm too often too nice by first letting people finish their posing and taking pictures, only that frequently even 5 selfies seem not enough because they didn't get that perfect angle right for the 'insta'.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    They’ve got as much right to be there as you do! > taking pictures with one in the background without consent They don’t need your consent!
    - 4y ago

ivanche 4y ago

Another old man's rant - if you need to broadcast you're enjoying, you're not really enjoying.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
inglor_cz 4y ago
I don't broadcast anything either, but I send a lot of photos and sometimes short videos to my elderly relatives, who actually like them. For example, they loved a short video of an elephant shower in a ZOO. Unfortunately, this requires the same hardware as a broadcast, so it would be covered by the same no-pictures policy.

christophilus 4y ago

It’s not a totally new phenomenon, but it’s gotten much worse. I remember as a kid, my mom would interrupt $enjoyable_experience to take photos for the family album. It would totally take me out of the flow as a kid and is why most of my childhood pictures are of me with an annoyed expression. In fact, most of my adult pictures feature the same expression for the same reason. Only, now my wife is the one with the camera.

mattpallissard 4y ago
Are you me?
andrepd 4y ago
How come taking a picture of you playing in the yard "takes you out of the flow"? x) You make it sound like you were writing assembly or something. For me, I look back on pictures and tapes of my childhood with joy. I'm glad my parents recorded those things and I can go back and see how things were when I was 3 or 8 or 12.
- xenocratus 4y ago
  Not OP, but had/have the same. It's because the person taking the photo doesn't want to capture the moment, they want to capture a choreographed moment, where everyone is looking at the camera, smiling etc. The same photo as everywhere else, but there.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Not him but "Wait wait, do that again so I can get a picture of it! No no you were over here, don't face this way do what you were doing before just pretend I'm not here. What's wrong, you were having fun a minute ago stop pouting!" Camera people can be really obnoxious like this, particularly to young children who haven't yet learned the value in humoring their parents. I always hated it when my mother got out the camera. If she had stood back and taken pictures without trying to arrange everything for the 'perfect' pictures it wouldn't have been such an issue. But that's not how it ever went.

zwaps 4y ago

I like to take a couple of photos for my album when I am doing some activity I'd like to remember (say, visiting a place on vacation). It's pretty important to me. However, I dislike two things 1.) Doing it for every small activity 2.) Broadcasting it on social media For 1.), I find that I don't really benefit from every walk around town or whatever in my albums. It's more enjoyable to remember significant moments - and there are quite enough I think. For 2.) I find that to find a good representation of what is happening, I need to alter my behavior. Instead of taking two to five pictures, I need to take videos and hundreds of pictures etc. As others have mentioned, this kills the actual thing. Instead of "I visited place X and did Y", it becomes "I took photos and videos at place X pretending to do Y". So the sweet spot is in between. I am very happy to have taken some photos - even selfies - in the past, and I wish I would have taken slightly more photos (or better ones, or videos) in the past, before we had such nice phone cameras. Pictures are great to remember moments. For that, we need enough pictures of these moments - but we also need to have made memories. We need to have experienced the actual thing. Pictures that go on social media are marketing. They have a different purpose.

flipchart 4y ago

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1314/ https://xkcd.com/1314/ :)