The Cameras are on.

 

*Lights, Camera, Profit*

The cameras are on. They are pointed at you and you are staring back. What do you wish to see and is it simply too late to turn away?

The cameras are on. You may not directly see them, but they are all around you. Some of them hidden and many obvious. There is a surveillance of convenience and visa versa. The ability to record the world around you is literally at your finger tips for most people. We tend to forget it. We tend to forget how many of our actions and behaviors are monitored on a daily basis. Tracking our moves. Manipulating our perceptions. Privacy is slowly eroding as we enter and age of surveillance, voyeurism, compliance and fear. The modern world turns its eyes outwards as it gazes into its own abyss. 

It's a constant loop. We are faced with the fact that we are being tracked. Both visually and through the expansion of technology a rapidly growing yet deteriorating economy. There are no signs of letting up either. Our data is tracked, sold and then shoved back in our faces through ads and things that we think we should like or have in our lives. You notice it. Just the other day you were looking for a sleek blender. Now you start seeing blender ads in your multiple social feeds. It's hard to escape now. Will you press the button to finally get that new space age blender or will you consciously look away as if you never wanted the blender in the first place? It's a tricky affair now isn't it? 

The microphones are on. They listen. Most of the time we give ourselves up without thinking about it. Posting online about private lives. Telling the world how happy or sad we think we are. Do good things really happen to us if we don't post about it on the internet? Can we keep things to ourselves and simply be OK with it? It's almost a revolutionary act in an age of oversharing and overcompensation.  

Our digital personas start to distort how we see ourselves and others around us. It's a mask. A veneer meant to convince you and others that life is going great. Put your best self out there why don't you? You don't want to be a downer. Now gussy it up. Put on that make up and live your best life through each post. Who cares what you feel inside if people can't necessarily see it? There's a deceptive art to it all. It takes practice, critical thinking and diligence to convince others and yourself that there is good reason for you to share your persona to the world. But wait, you start to notice the other ones around you. It seems like there  is a spark of envy that erupts in you when you see someone you know with better things, posts and relationships. You tell yourself that they could be as unhappy as you are. But can you really know? Or do you really even want to know? 

We start to morph in to judgers and enforcers without even knowing it. We get little boosts from calling out others on their behaviors. It's different when you are behind a screen. You get that fake feeling that you are secure and that you can get away with way more than you could if you were in person. It's a different game. You can chime in, let your voice be heard and simply log off. That is of course you even log off. 

It seems as if logging off as become a modern inconvenience. It seems to have shifted into little vacations from screen to screen. That instant accessibility has trained  us to log back in whenever we want even if we never technically logged off in the first place. It's a new game and new age. But who is really in control? With all these notifications and pings that hit us up on a daily basis, when are we not logged in or distracted? Has sleep become a valiant refuge from the achingly tired storm of the modern world? 

All these apps have trained us in our behaviors more than we would like to think. There is an illusion of control. There is an illusion of thinking that we aren't be tracked, farmed or tagged from every anxiety riddled moment. It's almost as if we are slaves to our flickering and fleeting attention spans. We are but fleshly servants for an industrial complex intent on keeping us compliant, domesticated and always willing to buy the next big thing or experience that will take us to a "new level" in life. Whatever that means. A real rabbit chasing the carrot type of affair.

How long can we stare at the reflection of ourselves before we want to look away or change it?

Tragedy strikes and we become our own documentarians. It could be a crash in the street or an altercation at a local convenience store. We are locked and ready like outlaws in the Wild West. Trigger happy to get the clicks and notoriety that we so aim for. Within seconds we can be thrusted into a fake hero's journey where we are star and the right person for the job. Even if we weren't part of a train wreck, we can make ourselves a part of it. We can write us in to an unfolding plot of social justice and whatever trendy social zeitgeist that is buzzing at the moment. Best of all, it will get us more attention. More of that acceptance and validation that we think we all want even if we tell ourselves that it's immature, selfish and against our principles. But hey, at least we took advantage of something that will be cool to tell at parties. 

The cameras are never off. We are being monitored whether we like it or not. It's a constant cycle. A constant program. We have dug ourselves in quite a hole. A hole that we may never get out of unless we choose to grow out all of our hair and exit the system around us. But it will only be a matter of time before the cameras come to find you. To track your every move and record it. Flying drones and bare bones. Your own resistance on display to the world around you. The wrapping is off. It's not about you. In fact, it probably never was. 

Peepholes into privacy have produced palpable profitability. 

You are a commodity. A cog in the machine that can be easily replaced. It's not as depressing as it sounds. There is plenty of value you have to offer, but within the Neo-Surveillance State it is a different game. If you have profiles in the internet, you are in the system. Each of your seemingly harmless posts have the potential to come back and bite you in the future. They are collecting your information and selling it. But hey, at least it is FREE. You are a product that clicks feverishly when bored, distracted or emotionally driven. Sometimes we lose track of the time. We give ourselves a limit and go well beyond that. It's like that for a reason. It is taking us for a ride and sucking us dry while promising an escape from the suck that it provides. An endless and vicious cycle at that. 

How many clicks to the center of the digital apocalypse? 

What as it like feeling alive before all the cameras were on? There was less self conscious ramblings and distractions for sure. What we had in front of us seemed to fill out attention and imaginations. The need to capture a moment through pictures was almost non existent. That was for the people with the real cameras and all. The experience was the good thing. The potential to create memories with reckless abandon. Something to cherish in the future. And it didn't require the documentation of imagery that we now can share with the world within seconds. A more private existence if you will. Privacy was more of the norm than anything. Very little of keeping up with appearances. An almost revelatory type of behavior in this Age of Surveillance. One might ask, if that don't take a picture of a good meal and post about it, did it even really happen? 

The urge to recreate the nostalgic days of less surveillance and technological ubiquity seems to be just as destructive as what we have now. That constant reach for the better days can take us down into a reactionary rabbit hole where we miss the advancements of convenience that have so enhanced our lives to this day. It's not all that bad when you get down to it. It boils down to how we use the imminent technology around us. It seems like it is more common these days for "it" to be using "us" and not the other way around. So many things are accessible at the click of a button or swipe of the finger that anything that takes longer tends to frustrate us. That's where we can check ourselves. Why be seduced into a moment of irritability and discontent when we can truly appreciate the awesome immediacy at our fingertips? All these time saving tools can let us focus on things that are really important. The relationships, the creativity, spontaneity and whatever gets our rocks off. The technology has certainly made the more mundane things easier. So how are we using these tools? The cameras are on. Or are we simply being used? 

The Scrolling might never end. 

DG