Remember the 1990’s? During the nineties, things were different than they are today by a long shot. One difference revolves around the ease with which people can “capture the moment” on video with little effort. Where once it took forethought, not only to remember to bring (or borrow) a video camera, but to remember the batteries and the tape as well, now it’s a thoughtless process. Dedicated cameras that shoot video are so small that people carry them around all the time, unburdened by the issues of the past. And of course, cell phones have been capable of low resolution, grainy video for years as well.
All of this technology has come together swiftly, and it requires a bit of thinking to come to some conclusions. One of those conclusions is that this is a less private world. Actions performed in public are more often caught on “tape” than previously. Think about the last music concert you attended. There were dozens of raised phones filming the show, weren’t there? And if you wanted to relive the memory of the concert, you could probably head to Vimeo or YouTube and see if some of those aspiring filmmakers posted their videos publicly. It would be strange if you couldn’t find some footage from the concert in question.
And that’s how the world is now–everyone is excited about creating lasting memories rather than temporary ones. Or, at the very least, they’re interested in documenting memories as they happen, even if they’re not necessarily the ones creating the memories. Correspondingly, the growth of the video sharing websites has taken off exponentially, and shows little sign of slowing. Users will continue to create video content until the idea of a private moment seems very far away, further away than in the nineties. But as historical documents go, each video represents a slice of perpetual knowledge, as past events are able to be reviewed.