I grew up loving horse racing. My parents were divorced, and many a Sunday was spent at the track with my dad. Probably not a super appropriate father-daughter activity, but I loved seeing the horses and my dad apparently had a raging gambling problem that I was blissfully unaware of, so it worked for us. We’ve even gone to a few of the races in the Triple Crown – the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. Since my dad passed away a few years ago, I was pretty excited to watch the Belmont Stakes this weekend and see if American Pharoah would win the Triple Crown, because I knew that it would be something that he would have been so excited about.
Being my father’s daughter, I happened to be at a casino during the race. The screams of excitement, likely from people who had put down a little bit of money on the favorite, when the horse became the first one in 37 years to win the Triple Crown created an atmosphere of excitement. I imagined the only place that would have had more excited fans than the sports book of that casino was the track itself. Until I saw this week’s Sports Illustrated cover.
On this week’s SI cover, American Pharoah rides into history http://t.co/JB2Cym7IHs pic.twitter.com/yJLf1qfi0G
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) June 9, 2015
Last year, after a debate with my mother, I embarked on a little experiment during which I disconnected myself for the day (and documented it for TSM). What I learned was that sometimes it was better to leave my phone in my bag and experience things as they happened, instead of trying to document it for the world to see on social media. And while I’m certainly not great at it (I’m the WORST when it comes to checking text messages at the dinner table – sorry to my friends), I’ve gotten better, particularly when I make an effort to be conscious about it. I recently took a European vacation with a friend and I came home with almost no pictures. I think I Instagrammed, like, two things, mainly so that my coworkers actually believed I was in Europe as the reason why I wasn’t answering their emails. Sure, that means that I don’t have any photos from the cruise we took up the Thames, but I can instead actually remember all of things I saw and all the things the tour guide said about them instead of having to look at pictures to recall them.
Back to these folks at the Belmont finish line, phones in the air. I understand the urge to capture the moment on your phone, I really do. There are once in a lifetime moments that we want to remember forever, and it’s our instinct to want to have a photo to remember them by. But then I think about my dad, who had barely mastered the art of the flip phone before he passed away. I think about how he would been there (because he would have found a way to be, trust me) and how he would have been so excited to watch that moment happen, with his phone nowhere in sight. He would have had that memory etched in his mind forever, not on his cell phone. We can always buy a picture of the race, the game, the tourist attraction or even the wedding. So maybe sometimes, we’d all be a little bit better off if we leave the photo-taking to the professionals who are there to capture the moment on film, and we can capture the memory in our minds instead..
Image via Shutterstock
Gotta hate to be the person above the barcode who got a software update notification at that very moment.
Sent via BlackBerry
Went to an outdoor concert last week with some friends and one of them brought along a girl he’s been unsuccessfully trying to nail (PGP). When she heard who was playing there was a loud outburst of “OMG, they’re my fave! I have to get a pic!”. The problem is she is barely over 5 feet tall so when standing on her tip toes and holding her phone as high as possible didn’t work she began pestering all of us to sit on somebody’s shoulders. TL;DR: 90 minutes of hearing about “she NEEDS a pic for “the insta” and a short vid for her snap story” can really make you hate a person.
After reading that, I hate her as well.
She’s not all that bad, just kind of obsessed with the whole ‘do it for the insta’ mentality
I honestly don’t understand Instagram. Like I get a picture is worth a 1,000 words, but if it’s worth sharing put it in text. Otherwise I don’t care about scrolling through 100 shitty pictures to get to 1 good one that captures the event.
Two different types of people:
1. Put your damn phone away.
2. Pics or it didn’t happen.
Can we talk about the people who bring their iPad to events like this for a second?
As long as I’m not that person watching some amazing thing though my phone screen (held above my head) instead of with my eyes I figure it’s okay. I’ll still occasionally split the difference by blindly holding my phone out and trying to estimate where the capture button is while I actually pay attention. Doesn’t make for the best pictures,but better than lugging around my camera and a bulky lens most of the time.
Also, obligatory “My boy Shibby wouldn’t check his phone during dinner with you”.
Damn straight
. I’d have the phone powered off as I offered to pour her more wine while we shared a romantic candle lit dinner at my place.
I don’t see much wrong with someone taking a quick snapshot from time to time during an event (I’m definitely guilty of it).
What I’ve never understood are the people who take these long videos of something. When the hell are you going to watch that grainy video of a concert where your phone distorted the audio of the band playing one of your favorite songs? I mean, really.
This is what I continuously try to tell my girlfriend as she has 37 minutes of film from every concert we’ve been to, then complains about her phone’s storage filling up.
Typical woman, amirite?
Oh yeah. Has she ever even thought about opening them up and watching them (for whatever reason)? Nope. Not once.
Tons of people don’t actually care about the event itself, they just want the insta likes and jealousy of their friends/followers.
This is why there are beach balls in the crowd at outdoor concerts…so you can punish the people in front of you holding their phones up the entire time with a well placed beach volleyball serve.
Ironically, I read this on my phone.