I was never much for pictures… for photographs, as it were… Just one of the things I don’t “get” and that no one seems to be able to explain to me. I tried for a while… I bought a reasonably nice SLR and a few accessories, and I … well, I worked myself through a few hundred photos I now don’t know what to do with. And my camera has had more use by family members in recent years than it ever got from me. And I still haven’t bought a digital camera. And I don’t go to flickr… or “get” flicker, for that matter… Although apparently it’s a big deal, apparently it’s well-enough-established among the younger generation that it’s like google, it’s just one of the basic assumed elements of what “internet” means. But most of the time when I’m “surfing” or whatever and I follow a link to something on flickr… I end up at some long essay, some blog post or political statement or manifesto, and … this, I get even less. There’s no photos there (that I can find), it’s just words… Why is this on flickr? Why did you start your political movement on flickr, of all places, if images aren’t even a part of it? Some of them even mention or link to their blogs – they HAVE blogs, they’re just … also using flickr… as a … blog? I don’t get it.
To me, well, I’m aware of flickr. It has something or other to do with photos, and with “Web 2.0” and with some “community” I’ll never be a part of. According to the front page there were “1,681 photos uploaded in the last minute” – this is crazy. I didn’t write this paragraph in the last minute.
What is it in my mind that doesn’t connect with these things that are so easy for other people? Snapshots, classifieds, gossip, and their digital counterparts (flickr, craigslist, blogging) just to name a few. I suppose it’s possible it’s just a problem of upbringing; if my family had participated actively in such as these, they would seem normal to me, right? And maybe if my family hadn’t been crazy, depressed, and poor, I wouldn’t be the same way.
