I’m fascinated by linguistics. To the point where I have, for more than a decade, subscribed to John McWharter’s podcast Lexicon Valley. I no longer think I have it in me to learn a second language, but I can learn more about the one I speak. Especially its origins.
I’ve learned about some things. Like, the odd pronunciation of certain words by certain people is called a glottal stop. Years ago my neice would talk about her college days in the city of Houghton, but would pronounce the word as though the “t” was silent.
Language is a living thing, and I in no way judge the language changes that I hear around me. My latest fascination is with something I’ve come to learn is called “s-retraction,” or “s-cluster retraction.” It’s when an “s” sound before a “t” is turned into “sh.” As in: shtriving to succeed.
My research tells me there may be a regional aspect. It can be found, “Particularly in the Northeast and among some speakers in the Midwest.”
In some ways, these dialects spread most readily among common social groups. If they are embraced by enough in a population, it becomes the norm. For the timebeing, this is still the way the word strive is pronounced, according to an online dictionary:
This could change in a generation or two. I’m entertained by the thought of an English language where street is pronounced “shtreet” and strength is pronounced “shtrength.”
On January 7 of this year, Mark Zuckerberg announced he’s getting rid of fact checkers at Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and is instead relying on “community notes, similar to X.”
A little background about me: I’ve long been off of Facebook. If you’re curious why, I may be posting on another blog about the grave harm that has come from Facebook’s algorithm of “engagement” over public safety, with the evidence starting in 2016. Facebook willfully ignored the systemic abuses taking place in Myanmar, which ultimately contributed to, the next year, the murder, rape and exile of the Rohingya Muslims living there.
A report filed by Amnesty International stated, “While the Myanmar military was committing crimes against humanity against the Rohingya, Meta was profiting from the echo chamber of hatred created by its hate-spiralling algorithms.”
As reported to the U.S. congress at the time, Steve Bannon took note. Through Cambridge Analytica, Bannon bought Facebook data in the U.K. under the pretense of “academic research” and used the data, and its platform and algorithm, to fan the flames of anger and fear, in the service of helping persuade voters that leaving the E.U. was a great idea.
I won’t go further here, but it’s no coincidence I’m posting this on the U.S. holiday of Presidents Day.
My Departure Timeline
So my leaving various platforms looked like this:
First, Facebook. As much as I enjoyed staying in touch with friends and family there, I downloaded all my data and closed up shop as a “product” of Facebook’s in 2020. (“Product?” you may ask … To paraphrase a common truism: If you use a “free” platform and you cannot find a product, you’re the product.)
Next was leaving Twitter, which used to be a wonderful resource for me professionally, and also a great way to keep in touch with distant friends. I even posted about what I had learned in my 15 years on Twitter here. But then Elon Musk purchased, dismantled and weaponized that platform. Leaving “X” was also painful, but I saw it degrade to what Kara Swisher not incorrectly calls a “Nazi porn bar.”
I still remained a “product” of Instagram and WhatsApp, however. Until Zuckerberg’s announcement. He reassured the public and investors at that time that he was removing content moderation to reduce mistakes, as in:
“The filters make mistakes, and they take down a lot of content that they shouldn’t. So, by dialing them back, we’re going to dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms. We’re also going to tune our content filters to require much higher confidence before taking down content. The reality is that this is a trade-off. It means we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”
Fighting “censorship.” This move loosens restrictions on hate speech against LGBTQ+ and immigrants. Myanmar much, Zuck? As if another reason was needed, a couple of weeks later, Meta paid out $25 million to settle a lawsuit with our current president, one that Meta and its investors would have won. It was over Meta kicking him off of the platforms for clear violations of the content moderation terms of service in place at the time. The lawsuit accused Meta of “impermissible censorship.” There’s that C-word again. It’s an obvious capitulation to a mob shakedown.
I’m late to the party in my fandom of Scott Galloway. I got to know him from his joint podcast with Kara Swisher, Pivot. I’ve come to admire his solid analysis of business and politics, and especially, as someone in my age bracket, his concern for the emotional wellbeing of young men. (You can hear his incisive views on that subject, in his typical iconoclastic framing, at the 1:09:35 timestamp of this episode.) Now I’ve also subscribed to his solo podcast, Prof G, and today that led me to this essay about the passing of the great Daniel Kahneman this year, pictured above, and how Galloway applies this Nobel Prize winner’s principles from Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman’s breakout book.
His premise is that we need to stop and think before acting. This sounds obvious, but as he explains in the essay, it’s far harder to put into practice than you’d think. Kahneman was the first to hypothesize upon, and prove the existence of, some profound cognitive biases we all possess, especially Loss Aversion. Kahneman describes in great detail how this influences our decisions — when we are thinking fast. It has since been shown to also exist in “lesser” primates, suggesting that we applied loss aversion when we were still swinging from tree branches by our tails.
Kahneman also wrote about how, since we make thousands of decisions per day, we tend to do more “fast thinking” as we become fatigued. If (or should I say when?) you break your 2025 New Year’s resolutions of eating fewer sweets, or drinking less, or doing less scrolling on social media, consider the time of day. You’ll likely find that you made the wrong decision, and fell back onto fast thinking, when you were most tired.
How To Bank Your Limited Daily Allotment of Slow Thinking Decisions
Maybe I like Galloway’s tribute to Kahneman because I apply similar rules as he does, to preserve thought energy for things that matter. He writes:
I actively limit the number of decisions I have to make to preserve neuron power for the key ones. I have other people order for me at restaurants [and] I have a uniform for work / working out, wearing the same thing every day.
Yep, that’s me as well. And maybe my admiration for Galloway just shows that I am susceptible to another damning cognitive bias, Confirmation Bias. It goes like this: He must be smart because I fancy myself smart as well, and he acts the way I do. Come to think of it, this is definitely true. And I’m also — more often than I’d like — the victim of myself in the sin of loss aversion. Here’s an example I’m not proud of:
During the pandemic, when my last employer included me in its efforts to deliver on quarterly profits and told me I was being let go, one of the very first actions I took seemed smart at the time. Without consulting anyone, that very day, I sold my 14 Ethereum “Ethers.” I told myself I could not endure another loss, so the crytocurrency I had purchased at $210 each, I sold for somewhere around $440. My fast thinking rationale was it could add to my considerable financial cushion at a 2x profit.
If I had held onto that $6,000 investment, purchased at half that amount, today I could have sold them for $47,000. Remember how I said my financial cushion was considerable? Well, so were my employment prospects, which someone could have helped me realize, applying slow thinking.
Seventy-five days after my last day of employment there, I joined my current employer.
Luckily, I’ve lectured on the power of loss aversion — the source of every dollar of profit at every casino blackjack table and within every insurance policy. I know its power and forgave myself for being an advanced primate. Anyway, crypto is way too volitile to be trusted. Good riddance.
More importantly, I also know, in advance, the breakfast and dinner I’ll eat every upcoming weekday, and the workout and work clothes I’ll wear every day until either I or that limited clothing selection fall apart.
Like Professor Galloway, I’m saving neuron power for the important decisions in 2025.
I have endorsed the first dish listed below to — I’m guessing — a dozen co-workers and friends. It’s that good. If you like roasted veggies and a spice with lots of umami, you need to try it. The second is a new discovery, and it is rocking my culinary world …
It arrived last week. True to Mr. Plotz’s endorsement, I’ve felt compelled by its amazing combination of flavors to try it on just about everything. The best so far: With the changing of the season, I realized I had not finished that distinctive maroon-colored cylinder of summer sausage. (You can picture the one, right? So familiar to picnic snack trays!) So dinner the other night was slim spears of summer sausage (you knew you could slice them lengthwise, right?) with equally thin wedges of a locally harvested apple. Why everything sliced thin? That offers a higher ratio of surface-area-to-volume, all the better for sauce slathering. Dipped in Zhong sauce — incredible.
For my spicy food friends, I say, You’re welcome and bon appétit!
You should know that I tend to abandon my past with the casualness of a snake shedding its skin. I’m not proud of this. (Maybe snakes aren’t thrilled about the shedding thing either.)
I remember vividly, and wincingly, the night my first wife — probably during an anniversary celebration early in our 23-year marriage — reverently pulled out a shoebox brimming with the multi-page letters I had sent her. For a couple of years we had a long distance courtship over snail-mail. And because she, like me, fancied herself a comedy writer, she would thrust, in her letters, and I would parry. I would do my best to match her sparkling urbanity and Martini-dry wit. Because it was fun. And yes, to win her love.
Who am I kidding? To get laid. And this primal motive will factor into what I’m about to share with you. But first, the tragic news you’ve already surmised …
Effervescent and deeply sublime as her letters were (and believe me, they were!), I saved none of them. Not a scrap. Not a scintilla. Wait, not even one witty Christmas card? No, sorry. What about less witty but holiday-appropriate Valentine’s Day cards, scented with the perfume of future eros? Nope. Nary a heart-shaped outline.
I had no concept of mementoes. I still don’t.
Your Honor, I confess this humiliation with one defense: I am nothing if not an equal-opportunity discarder. Not just the flotsam and jetsam of past loves. Hell no. I have maybe a dozen photos total of my youth and extended family. It’s seriously a pathology. If Marie Kondo were to look at the totality of my sentimental totems, she would sit me down grimly and ask, “Does nothing spark joy for you?!?”
Possibly no. But I’ll tell you the plus side of this autobiographical slovenliness.
A few weeks ago one of my roommates from college, who I have not seen literally since that distant era, found me on Instagram and asked me a question about a piece of writing I produced literally 45 years ago. I could barely remember its title, let alone contents.
Let that sink in. Someone else saved a copy of what is a one-act comedy I wrote in (I’m guessing) 1978 that I had totally forgotten existed. It was surely the only copy anywhere.
My mind reeled.
My long forgotten (but truly wonderful) old friend asked if I would give him permission to share the play, Driveshaft, with his son, a professional Hollywood writer.
My stomach clenched.
L.P. Hartley wrote, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” The question leapt to mind: What in the hell did the Jeff of 1978 do?!?! I asked my long-lost friend to send me a copy. He did today.
In reading it I got my answer: The me from back then was a very young man. A horny one. But also one who had studied comedy enough to pull off the first draft of an at times quite funny one act play. I actually kind of like this guy. And please understand: I don’t very much like me today.
And, let’s see. What else do you need to know as someone not from the country called the distant past? “F.M.” stands for Fleetwood Mac, and was abbreviated because it was common knowledge. Every household, it seemed, had a copy of Rumours. On vinyl. And yes, corduroy sofas were a thing, but unlike that still-exhalant album, even then those things were a punch line. As were polyester disco clothes. And league bowling. But not disco! That was still cool. It wasn’t until Disco Sucks became a mantra in 1980 that the world would turn away from the genre (and recently return … Thank you Dua Lipa. … Call me!).
I used to say on my blogs that with comments off, you could always find me on social media. But today popular social media is a dumpster fire. The best way if you’d like to share your thoughts with me is to use a medium that would not emerge for 20 years after this piece was written. Email me. Send your thoughts to ID jlarche on the platform Gmail.
Last night I dreamed about being in a war, in an old abandoned building with my comrades, working on some vague military intelligence. Then I realized that water was lapping at the ledges of our second floor windows. Water had swallowed the floor below us, and we were aware it might not be done rising. We worked to hike our electronics onto high points and waited. And then I woke up.
It wasn’t a nightmare. That’s the puzzling part. I was reminded of our climate crisis, which assails us every day, but is so gradual and varied it doesn’t cause panic. Just reactive measures.
I’m listening right now to this song that samples heavily the wise and gentle words of the late astronomer Carl Sagan. He reminds us that we’re alone in the universe and we need to take responsibility to save ourselves.
“No hint [from our monitoring of the universe] that help will come from elsewhere to save us.”
I first started blogging about the metaverse 15 years ago. Back then it was speculation about the adoption “stickiness” of Second Life, by Linden Labs. Much has changed, as evidenced by Mark Zuckerberg going all in — even renaming his Facebook corporation Meta, and paying the price in steeply falling stock value and frustrated employees. But there are things that have clearly not changed since Second Life’s arrival, and they suggest he’s on to something. They are listed below, with the fourth being most consequential:
The metaverse remains bound in the temporal world — but is not spatial — as we know it in the “real world”
The metaverse remains a reality that a group agrees to
The metaverse is still reliant on the Network Effect for survival
As true as it was last time with Second Life, if the metaverse catches on it will change everything
Let’s explore these one at a time.
1. Be Here Now, But Here Is Up To Us
With a hat tip to Ram Dass, I used his famous book title to remind you of the IRL world we call home. In the metaverse, the “now” is still immutable. Time cannot be changed. But the “here?” Negotiable!
Think about if you’ve ever passed a note in a classroom. And about the texts you’ve exchanged there as well.
The note is both spatial and temporal. It’s written on a 3D object (paper) and when you pass it to me, you see my reaction in real time, the temporal part of the temporal / spatial here and now.
A text from your cell phone to mine? You still see my reaction in real time, but the note only exists in a device.
This is the world of both Linden Lab’s metaverse and Mark Zuckerberg’s. One small difference is the blurring of the metaverse with Augmented Reality (AR). Unlike Virtual Reality (VR), mediated by a device such as Oculus, with AR aspects of the metaverse can be overlayed on the place you are viewing from, and the view through which you are experiencing in that device.
The metaverse in AR can play with our spatial experience. Which is pretty cool.
But let’s return to pure VR for a moment. What place does a VR headset take us?
2. Agreed-upon Real Estate
Robert Frost, in his poem Mending Wall, reminded us that, “Good fences make good neighbours.” Don’t believe him? Wherever you’re living now, please don’t contemplate strolling into your neighbor’s house or apartment unless invited. It won’t go well.
Why does this matter? The real estate in the metaverse is manufactured, and theoretically unbounded by physics.
My metaverse can be different from yours. But unless I’m throwing an insanely popular house party in mine, you’ll find my metaverse a pretty boring place (and frankly so will I). The temptation, in both Zuckerberg’s metaverse and Linden Lab’s, is not to leave things to chance. Instead, rely on real estate developers who know what they’re doing.
I can put on my VR goggles and meet in a really popular neighborhood, knowing I’ll have a good time and even find value in the acquaintances I make. It’s a neighborhood manufactured by an enterprise who will benefit from me and many others congregating there.
That’s why even in the early 00s, brands wanted to get in on the action. A manufactured place is not a stretch for a brand.
Debbie Millman, author, teacher and strategist, said that “branding [is a] process of manufacturing meaning.” It stands to reason: Why not keep manufacturing, and create a space consistent with your brand where people can deepen their feelings about it in an expansive and curated communal space?
3. Avoiding the Sound of One Hand Clapping
Zuckerberg has certainly studied the stumbles of Linden Labs and others. He has seen the hazard of a metaverse no one wants to occupy.
The failure to launch of Second Life, in a way where many still ask, “Second what?!?,” is due to the Network Effect. This effect was first observed when our world was mostly analog. I recall it being explained in the context of fax machine ownership. (Yes, I’m an Old):
A single fax machine is useless. A second fax machine has utility between the two owners. But with each incremental fax machine bought and used, their cumulative value grows.
This effect also dictates the survival of a given social network. And ultimately, the metaverse is a social network.
The jury is out if Zuckerberg’s gamble will pay off. But unlike Linden Labs, this gamble is extremely well-funded. And if it does …
That’s my last point, which was as true then as it is now:
4. Technological Change Is Not Additive
The subhead, “Technological change is not additive,” is from author and media theorist Neil Postman, and he elaborates, “[the change] is ecological.” It changes everything.
Everything.
We’ve already seen how Facebook’s current platforms have changed our world. Its politics. Its boundaries. Arguably even its collective levels of happiness and anxiety.
So those four things are what has not changed in one-and-a-half decades. What has changed? A lot, actually.
Ownership, yes. But also bandwidth and access
Web 3.0 has been touted as the advent of ownership, an addition to the read and write features that define the Web 2.0 world in which we currently live.
It’s true.
With blockchain, there are immutable records of ownership, decentralized and out of the control of governments and power brokers. This means, unlike in Second Life, in a modern metaverse you can stake a claim on a space or a possession that cannot be “claim-jumped.” Introducing NFTs.
NFTs are built on the blockchain, and although their value volatility presages a burst bubble, ownership of them can never be disputed. Completely independent a physical, notarized deed, or some institution with a finger in the ownership pie saying it is so, the NFT you buy today will still be indisputably yours a year from now — even if its value falls to less than that of a mint condition Beanie Baby.
That’s a huge benefit of the modern metaverse.
Right now NFTs have been primarily used for art. File away this thought: Wherever artist travel, brands are sure to follow. But I’m getting ahead of myself. There are two other major changes with Web 3.0.
Let’s not underestimate the advent of 5G, and other new ways to move electrons. The speed of 5G makes it built for immediacy. When you and I pass a virtual note, the “now” I experience is as close to your “now” as physics can currently satisfy. That’s important in the metaverse, because, you’ll recall, time is the glue binding all of us to a shared metaverse experience.
The same wider pipes deliver a more detailed experience. On the urging of a colleague, I finally watched the film Ready Player One, and once I saw it I understood why. The metaverse of that story was vivid and inviting. And with haptic wearables, extremely visceral.
Which leads to access. Second Life, at least in its early incarnations, required downloading an app on a desktop or laptop computer. With Meta, all it will take is a headset. And Mr. Zuckerberg wants you to own one.
The Devices To Overshadow Our Cell Phones
“The next cell phone” is how this Economist piece described the AR and VR headsets that are being frantically manufactured by Google, Meta and others. The numbers projected there are breathtaking. This is different from the Linden Labs days, when there was no hardware push to match the software they developed.
And there are already eager device buyers. My old employer, Accenture, just announced they’re buying 60,000 Oculus VR devices. Will this and other investments be enough to achieve Network Effect velocity? Time will tell.
When the burgeoning AOL needed quick growth, 30 years ago, it mass-mailed CD-ROMs by the millions (Hey, they made great coasters!) Will Meta do something similar with their VR headsets? It seems implausible, but necessary to achieve Network Effect velocity https://t.co/X87Ys0b4ZI
But what if it does? Here is the use case I mentioned in the headline.
Superbowl Sunday, 2025
Scarcity is built right into Superbowl Sunday, the intellectual property owned by one of the most powerful brands in the world: the National Football League. This scarcity accounts for the insanely high prices for tickets to those games. With the metaverse, the in-person prices would continue to be stratospheric, but there would be another way to attend, and another price structure associated with it.
Imagine a game where those in the stands can watch the game, but much improved, through AR glasses. Statistics could flash, and replays would be on demand with the utterance of a voice command.
In addition, those who pay enough can be there as well, but from anywhere else in the world, by wearing VR goggles. They’d have an even more virtual way to watch the same time-bound plays and replays.
But in this humble use case, the real metaverse magic happens during half time.
In a way, the half time show we saw this February was close to an AR experience. Like other recent years, there was a miracle taking place, in real time, on that vacated playing field.
While the two teams were in their respective locker rooms, a miracle of logistics, LED lighting, and smoke machines transformed the square yardage of competition into a world designed for entertainment.
There was a multi-floor set, made of scaffolding but dressed to look like something else, that featured a half dozen hip hop elders, including an upside-down 50 Cent. Amazing.
Another recent year featured Lady Gaga atop a crane, surrounded by intricately choreographed light-emitting drones. Again, amazing, made more so by the extremely high stakes of getting the show off the stage once the music ends.
This time-bound event (everything erected must be off the field before the second half can start!) is ready-made for AR / VR sorcery.
Enter Google Tilt and Dozens of Sculptors
What if, in 2025, the rigging that showcases the singers and dancers was far simpler, and the other world that is conjured is created in a metaverse? And what if we get to see that world be sculpted, one sweeping plane of light at a time?
Imagine half time has just started, and everyone in the stands sees an assembly taking place through their AR glasses. The set for the musicians and dancers is constructed over and around pipes and stage planks, by real artists on the field, using virtual light they have mastered.
We see those sculpting talents through something like Google Tilt. Remember when I said brands aren’t far behind when artists step in, to create, and enthrall us? Well naturally, these half time artists would be heavily sponsored.
“Google Tilt?” you ask. Instead of me describing it, allow me to show you this:
The half time set creation dazzles the audience watching in the stands, but also the additional paid attendees using VR.
As for the rest of us? Technology isn’t additive, you’ll recall. It changes everything. We’d still be watching on a television, so we wouldn’t be able to see the performance in 3D, like others. But we would see the same amazing set that adorns the singers and dancers.
As an added bonus, at the end of the show, AV and VR attendees would get a chance to win the unique and heavily branded work of these artists. As the stage is struck, in readiness for the second half of play, the sculptures comprising the stage set would be distributed to the audience, either by lottery or highest bidder, as NFTs.
If you win a sculpture, you’d get to “take home” an actual piece of the Super Bowl show, to show off and cherish. Instead of getting a tee-shirt shot from an air gun, you’d win a beautiful, one-of-a-kind art piece for all to see and admire.
I just posted three things I’ve learned over the decade-and-a-half on Elon Musk’s latest acquisition target. You can read about them on my business blog.
Lucy is an extraordinary singer / songwriter. The lyrics of her best songs are spare, incisive poems. Three years ago I was blown away by her song Night Shift. It was a break-up song I couldn’t help but blog about. Now she has outdone herself with Thumbs, from her latest album. It explores the complicated emotions from helping a friend endure a rare visit from her estranged father. Please don’t take my word for it, and listen to her interview about the song on the Song Exploder podcast. As always, it ends with the song in its entirety.
I posted a version of this on my marketing technology blog in 2008, during an exotic summer vacation. This was just months after Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone, and I had no idea I was living in the era of the migration of high quality cameras into our cell phones. The next 13 years would take the changes I observed below to far greater levels, with the assist of social media.
I documented my vacation using a digital camera. With every photo of friends and family that I snapped, I was thinking of the concept that had been sloshing in my brain for years. Still in a distant foreign country, I excused myself long enough to post this, even sketching the accompanying graphic. I’m rerunning the post here, and now, because of news of the well-hyped Poparazzi app, which takes the selfie off the menu for its users.
As I post this, I’m still on vacation in the Faroe Islands, where I’ve attended the wedding of a dear friend’s daughter. It was a traditional ceremony, blending ancient and new traditions. For instance, ancient Faroese and Danish songs were sung during the wedding reception, which also featured PowerPoint slideshows of photos and Quicktime videos depicting the bachelor and bachelorette parties. Digital cameras were everywhere.
I’ve thought a lot about how digital technology has changed the way we experience the world. We like to think that we craft our tools to serve us, but the limitations of these tools cannot help but change us as well, in the same way that our human eyes see a different spectrum of light than, say, the puffins I photographed the other day on the steep Faroese cliffs.
One example of this profound change is electricity. That’s obvious. The other I’ll describe is more subtle, and involves digital photography.
Electric Light: The Other Midnight Sun
Faroese weddings go on for two solid days. The first day, which included what Americans would call the reception, had three distinct meals (the formal dinner, the serving of cakes, and an early-morning soup course). The first meal was only just ending at 11 PM, which didn’t seem so late, since the sun was only just behind the horizon. What’s more, being so close to the Arctic Circle, the sun didn’t stay away for long. As it began to reemerge, at 4 AM, we were still dancing to a band that played exclusively American — and British Invasion — rock songs.
I was told that the wedding dancing of a few hundred years ago would have included a traditional Faroese dance that takes at least an hour to complete (danced, as it is, to a song with 300+ verses). Back then oil lamplight would have illuminated the steps. This certainly would have dampened some of the more boisterous aspects of the event!
So much about us has changed because of technology’s electric sun.
What struck me about his description is the muted reaction of New York Times reporters. Keep in mind that daily news reporting is driven by extremely tight press deadlines. Yet before the electric light, there was much that could be forgiven. A reporter could more easily file stories developed over weeks — and in the process, get more sleep.
Edison’s “lighting of New York” included 27 electric lamps in the Times editorial rooms. And so, you may wonder, what was the account of this sudden conquest over darkness from the reporters of “The Grey Lady?” Well, the column on Page 8 (yes, 8!) of the next day’s paper said it was, “In every way satisfactory.”
Klein made the obvious point that the paper, “never fully grasped its significance.” Only hindsight could show these reporters that their careers were to be changed forever. And also their family life. The electric light would extend both wedding festivities and work responsibilities — allowing for a day that need never fade into darkness.
Life In A Digital Viewfinder
In my travels these two weeks I’ve visited some extraordinary families (and I have one more to meet, in Belgium, before returning to the States). On the walls of homes in Milan, Berlin, Copenhagen — and now Torshavn, Faroe Islands — I’ve admired photos of relatives that sometimes go back to the very first silver plate photographs of the mid-1800’s. These photos are sometimes right next to the latest generation’s photos. Having observed at the same time some very ancient European traditions, attitudes and mannerisms, I have to again posit that the medium has changed us as surely as we have changed the medium.
It was two years ago, when I saw this pose depicted in a still from a movie (illustrated below), that I first realized that the portability and disposability of digital camera technology actually created a new type of romantic embrace.
Compare the stock-still (and emotion-free) poses of couples and families in the tintypes of antiquity with this commonplace example of PDA (public display of affection), and you have to wonder if our cameras own us as much as we do them.
Traditional values — superseding romantic love with love of family, and narcissism with selflessness — may have been made quaint as much by our evolving tools as our evolving beliefs.
