Not long ago at a concert, Adele interrupted herself to ask a fan why he would rather videotape her with his phone than put it down and actually watch/listen to her in person, at her show?
It’s a sound question. As anyone knows who has ever taped their vacation and then watched it saying, “wow, I never actually saw that” knows, taping something is not a good substitute for actually experiencing it. Nevertheless, we are increasingly processing all of our lives through our phones — they have taken over people’s lives and their common sense — which brings us to this story.
Someone (or, more likely, someone’s well-connected parent) got a right-near-the-stage spot at a Beyonce concert, from which privileged area she proceeded to spend her time playing Pokemon Go.
Like Adele, Beyonce — and every other artist — now finds herself competing with phones for her own audience’s attention.
Alright, if that’s what you want to do, play Pokemon Go at a concert. If this is how you really want to spend your the conscious hours of the short life God gives us, that’s your choice. But here’s where the story gets odd. Apparently, another concert-goer (who clearly also had a great spot at the concert) saw the first concert-goer ignoring Beyonce and took offence. So, she pulled out a phone and videotaped the girl playing Pokemon Go, and then took the time to paste that to social media, with comment.
To recap: someone ignored Beyonce at her concert, in order to complain on social media that someone else was ignoring Beyonce at her concert. Very likely, she then continued to ignore Beyonce some more as she read the tweets her complaint inspired.
And no one — apparently not even the Mail Online — thought that was ironic at all.
A world that can’t identify and appreciate irony is a world that has lost part of its capacity to have fun and laugh at itself a little bit. How depressing.
Bonus question to ponder: do we own our phones, or do they own us?
And today we celebrate...