June Renew: Day Twenty
Royal Viewership
There’s been a lot of articles about the Kennedys on DailyMail lately. I was too young to really grasp the popularity of the family before JFK, Jr. died. But it never really occurred to me that they were modern-day American royalty. I had gone to the JFK Museum during my trip to Cape Cod, which was actually a fascinating little viewport into the one-time First Family. What I didn’t anticipate was just how many photos there were of them, and how much of their lives would be put on public record.
It was a little surreal to say the least, considering I was pretty much at ground zero of the Kennedy compound. Every angstrom of JFK and RFK’s tenure in the public sector was documented, including photos of the family and children on outings and vacations. Of course they showed the political sector, but no matter what, there seemed to be no escaping a life in public view. and I found myself wondering if they were altogether unhappy with that being their choice of life.
But that’s just it. It was a choice to be public servants and foisting themselves in the limelight. Now all of us are on camera all the time, and I don’t particularly feel consented by the constant close-ups.
Livestream Lady
Back when I was livestreaming regularly, I was going to a lot of protests around Manhattan. They were plentiful, as most of the people around here think Trump is just the worst thing to ever exist. So when he was legitimately in office, there were people contesting that fact all the dang time. I had fun observing and watching people leaving their homes to stand for something they thought was noble, I guess, but most of the time I just had fun reading chat and goofing around. It was very hard to take these protests seriously, especially when the recorded message is nothing more than “Orange Man Bad.”
Anyway, it wasn’t uncommon to see other people recording their experiences as well. At one protest, I was standing in the scant pro-Trump crowd for a bit after I had ventured over from the swell of protesters. There was a guy there who I also saw was livestreaming. He was conducting some kind of interview with another nearby guy, but I noticed the framing of his shot had me directly in the middle of the interview.
“Watch this,” I said to my chat, and proceeded to mug for his camera, winking, wiggling my shoulders, swiveling my hips. I could tell the guy was looking at me acting a fool, and for some reason I thought he was going to come interview me afterwards.
He didn’t. He ended his interview and moved on, him (or his chat) probably getting too distracted by my presence. I felt a little bit like a sh*thead, as I wasn’t the focus of his documenting, but went out of my way to make it about me. Because I was choosing to film and be filmed in public. And I should have had enough respect to focus on my own content rather than blow up someone else’s.
But in this day and age, we’re the content. The choice is no longer there. And I wonder if I took all that time for granted where my stardom was entirely unnecessary.
Living Live On or Off Camera
I’ve written about my livestream era a couple times here. I did have a lot of fun with it, and I think about going back to it every so often. But if I do, it will certainly become few and far between. It’s so permanent all you do live. Everything getting recorded and stored and put on a cloud somewhere. It’s like you have to be the most self-aware you possibly could be if you want such self-documentation. Somewhere in the ether, there’s a video of me on that guy’s livestream looking like a douchebag. It’s as much in the annuls of history as photos of the Kennedy family. Maybe not on the same widespread scale (obviously), but it’s a recorded, documented slice of human life all the same.
We’re on camera all the time. There’s no escaping the recording. Once you gain this knowledge, you can’t help but act, at least just a little bit. It’s why “reality” shows are just manufactured reality. Those people might actually be crazy, but they’re putting on for the cameras. I’d rather live with the idea that I’m always on camera, but not actually care to alter course anymore. I’m not here to act. I’m here to be.
Maybe one day I’ll get my privacy. As much as one can get on a secluded farm and the security cameras I’ll inevitably have to set up.