Cameras and an Appeal to Dignity

Cameras. Everybody and their cat owns one, and sometimes it seems like the cat is the better photographer. (hint: it's all about the perspective). Consequence? We're the best documented generation since documentation was invented.

Is this a good thing?

Well, on the one hand, you'll never forget how to make that positively disturbing facial expression next time Aunt Gussie wants a kiss. But, as Reb Tevye would say, "on the other hand..."

We're egotistical enough as a society. (Don't believe me? Babysit a couple of toddlers or sit near the returns counter at your local department store for a couple hours. You'll come around.) It's true that everybody is special in their own special way, but I personally have exhibited enough special moments to realize that the vast majority of these should never see the public spotlight.

And yet they do, and are commented on rapturously and often to hilarious effect. The trouble starts when we start to get the idea that we're some kind of Victor Borge or Charlie Chaplin. The snowball effect ensues, and before you know it, you're falling down a rabbit hole at terminal velocity (I don't care what Lewis Carroll says about physics), and see that the floor is hard, unrelenting, and coming up fast.

The people who do this best (worst?) all seem to hail from Hollywood. One day you slip on a banana peel. People laugh. Next thing you know, you're falling down stairs and getting hit in unmentionable places. The ironic thing is, it's probably not even you doing these things, but some poor guy who appears in the credits as "Stunt Man #1", "Stunt Man #2", and so forth.

Not that cameras are bad. Nor that using (or attempting) humor is a doomsday trigger. But please. For all that is good and wholesome. Don't throw away your dignity. It's like a golf ball hit awry. It'll either hit a water trap, never to be seen again, or go through the window of a multi-million dollar mansion, where it will be held up and displayed for all your golfing buddies to see...

...and laugh over.

Won't somebody please think of the children!

Until next time,
- Daniel

(credits to Julia H. for the pic of my attempted suicide)