Over the past weekend I was at a rock concert, and among the thousands in the crowd, I caught sight of at least twenty or thirty people at any given time making video recordings of the show using their cell (mobile) phones. I had to wonder: What is the point?
The videos will undoubtedly be too dark to distinguish anything besides a "bright area" and a "dark area", so choppy that they induce motion sickness when watching them and of such poor audio quality that it is equivalent to listening to the CD, as played by a blender.
I guess I just don’t get the point, but I do get annoyed when they hold their phones up and block my view while they attempt to make a worthless video.
Hello? YouTube, anyone? There will be better videos than you took, posted online before you even get home. Trust me, I looked.
Some weirdos like me like to record stuff however they come. I mean, not really bothered to much about quality. Secondly, such a video ‘captures’ the moment… with the person who clicks it engraved in the history.
And thirdly, You Tube.
All archiving must be done with aim to retrieval. I think with the transaction costs so low and falling, we all do this – take aimless photos with our phones and make video recordings we will never watch. But when they block your view, the transaction cost changes for them because the possibility of being slapped in the head from behind would be quite significant 😉
@ Kris
I suppose this is just the video equivalent to my trigger happy picture taking, where I take a lot of photos and later come back to review and discard those I don’t like.
Note, there were several people at the show with more advanced video cameras, recording the show, and that made sense to me. I’ve yet to see a phone that can make a good enough video of a concert to make it worthwhile, but I’m sure such phones exist somewhere, or are not far off!
@ Shefaly
I assure you I’m a fun loving guy and highly unlikely to resort to violence to get them to stop blocking my view, plus I was enjoying the show too much. You’re right I suppose, the more video and pictures we have of any event reduces the chances of it ever being “lost to history”. Do you think it likely that such video owners are going home and detailing the time and place the video was taken?
While I agree that the quality is usually poor at best, I have been known to take a few cell phone photos at concerts….I like to text/email them to friends and let them know where I am at. Not sure the photo adds much as the quality is bad with great settings, but it still makes the point. I can not even tell what the picture is of when I know……
@ Mark
In fact, that is the only reason I thought of that a person might take such a video; to send it to someone and “prove I was there” or show them “what they were missing”! Similar, in intent, to ringing someone and holding up the phone for them to “listen”. The quality is rubbish, but the point is made.
I do look forward to the day when cameras can produce a quality image or video in those kinds of conditions.
Yeah, it’s a bit like the graffitti “KillJoy was here, OK” written to prove the point, most of which is quite pointless to anyone except the said KillJoy.
I quite agree with Shefaly – the transaction cost being too low affords every KillJoy his/her moment. Who knows, that might be the only thing of consequence they might tell their grandchildren?
@ Cheekymonkey
Wouldn’t that be sad if it really was the only item “of consequence” to pass along.