I come from the school of thought where pictures are taken of unique things, special things, events worth remembering. Now, it seems like there are 20 photos of completely pointless events, uploaded, tagged, and Picnik-ed for every one truly amazing photo of an interesting event. Do you really need to remember drunken party #349? Or date #87? Or the 683th time your dog played dead? And even if you do, why on earth do ALL of your Facebook friends need to see this moment captured on film (or pixel) as well?
Maybe I'm just a cynic. The number of things I complain about would seem to point in that direction.
I prefer to think of myself as opinionated and steadfast in those opinions.
Anyway, back to the photos. On my Facebook profile you will find a number of photos from the various trips I have taken, and considering that I will probably only get to Cambodia once, I think they fall fairly clearly into the "unique" category of things. But you won't find picture after picture of my with my boyfriend, or doing a self shot just to keep things "fresh". In general, I just don't see the point of posting photos with nothing remarkable going on. What is the point, really?
This leads me to the conclusion that Facebook is making people narcissistic.
Perhaps a bit of a leap in logic there. But honestly, with the ability to post an unlimited (does Facebook have an upload limit?) number of photos, people can feed their inner celebrity with ease. And with the nanosecond speed with which Facebook friends can "Like" a photo, it serves to reinforce the idea that this mirror shot of you in your bathroom is actually worth taking. Most of the time, the only reason I can justify for why some photos were posted were to get attention and as an ego boost. Fishing for a compliment, in other words.
I know I sound like one of those Web 2.0 doomsday preachers where they mourn the downfall of real talent in the face of the new ability for everyone to be famous. And I guess I do sort of agree with them, but perhaps not to their extremes. I wish everyone would post just one nice photo rather than 20 boring ones.
Why?
Because it annoys me. And if this goes on too long, no one will be able to figure out what photos are really worth looking at and remarkable if you've uploaded 20,000.
And it makes you seem like an attention whore (pardon my terminology, I couldn't find an appropriate substitute).
Remember, it's quality, not quantity, that counts.
2 comments:
i believe this came about with the invention of digital cameras, not necessarily with the invention of facebook. facebook just happened to be the forum to share such photos, and before that it was photo bucket or flickr.
I used to hate when digital cameras came along because everyone became a photographer, no artistic creativity required. but if you had the money to shell out for a sweet camera you could take better pictures and not worry about paying for film or development.
This is true. I have noticed a lot of people going "I'm a great photographer!" just because they have a big expensive digital camera, and no skills.
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