|
Jan. 11, 2006
Sometimes new technology alters the way we relate with each other and the world around us. But when this happens, who's in charge of naming our new tech-based behavior? Case in point: Blogging. My spell checker still doesn't recognize the word, and if you asked me what that meant 10 years ago, I would have guessed it was a bad habit requiring participation of a finger and a nose. But now I find myself and scores of others doing it in public (on the Web) as if we learned it in grammar school along with the ABC's. Since blogging is merely the act of expressing one's self in a public Web forum in the hopes that others will read your words of wisdom and agree, disagree, correct your spelling, or call you names, why didn't we call it something else, like “Posting”, “Dumping”, or “iRambling”? (By the way, does anyone out there know who thought up the word “blogging” in the first place?)
Fortunately, not all words used to describe unusual or tech-based behavior are as obtuse as “blogging”, and I'll occasionally define them so that I can use them in my own blogs (and not have to explain them at the end of long, run on sentences enclosed in parenthesis like this one).
My favorite is Vacuuming. Sure, I know this word probably entered into our speech patterns with the invention of the vacuum cleaner (a super-high tech, and often dangerous device when it debuted). But according to a friend at Sony, the term is now used to describe an unusual, antisocial behavior that afflicts a small percentage of camcorder owners. Vacuuming describes a action of incessantly video taping every moment at a party, on the street, on vacation, or wherever you might find someone with a camcorder. (Based on the frequency of sightings, places like NY City and Las Vegas are actually along the vacuumer's migration path.) Don't confuse a rare vacuumer with of the more common casual videographer. They both look the same from a distance, but long after a videographer has gotten back to having a life and enjoying themselves, you'll find a vacuumer swaying dangerously back and forth as he or she continues to record every thing in sight, as if the camcorder was attached to their brain. (Could it be?)
Vacuuming wasn't possible back in the days of Super-8 movie cameras. The price of film and processing saw to that, plus you couldn't see where you were going if you kept your eye glued to the small viewfinders. But cheap, erasable DV tapes, long life batteries, and larger LCD monitors all make vacuuming a reality these days. Unfortunately, the disease is beginning to spread to digital cameras owners. The first vacuuming photographer I spotted was actually a “pro” shooting my niece's wedding. While shooting one family portrait, I noticed he just held the shutter button down on his Fujifilm S2 Pro DSLR in burst mode. He didn't even look through the viewfinder once he framed the shot, instead he stood next to the camera trying to get everyone to look in his direction at the same time. Later, I asked him how many photos he normally took at a wedding, and he proudly boasted “between two and three thousand!” After the event, he hires someone else to edit through the pile and pick the winners for the portfolio. Folks, that ain't photography, it's vacuuming!
I guess high capacity memory cards, fast AF systems, and rapid burst modes now make it possible to shoot with reckless abandon in the hopes of catching at least one good, printable photo. But just like the problem faced by the video vacuumer, a digital camera vacuumer can never find the time to edit thru all the junk to find a good shot—or they might not recognize one if they saw it.
Now, I wonder if there's a new word out there to describe this new, and potentially dangerous behavior: Yesterday, I saw a lady get off the train, walk down a hall, up a long flight of stairs, and then cross a busy street in NY city—all the while watching and listening to a movie (I swear it was “You've got mail!”) on her portable DVD player with a 7-inch LCD monitor. A few blocks later I turned around to see if she was still so engrossed, but all I was distracted by a bunch of flashing red lights and sirens.
Comment on this | Read more reports
|
