is this camera on me?

yea streaming is cool, but is nobody else worried...

Lately I’ve been feeling like we’re living in one big Black Mirror episode and it’s scaring me, but also frying my brain with how deep in thought I’ve been getting…because I don’t think it’s no escaping it.

Don’t get me wrong…I love social media, I love sharing my experiences, and I love connecting with other people across the world. Some of my favorite people are my url friends who’ve I’ve either never seen in person or we’ve hung out less than a handful of times.

But I can’t help but think that something ain’t right. I know we joke about how everything is “that damn phone”…but it’s really that phone. One thought I always have is how much technology has progressed so fast, and it’s so crazy. As a millennial, growing up in that era as technology advanced, it’s wild to not look around and be a bit weirded out about what’s going on.

What prompted this was the viral interview with Gayle King and the creator of Xania Monet, a record deal signed AI singer. My first thought was “dang this girl can sing, the song sound good, okay girl go off,” but that was before I realized that it wasn’t even the girl singing. Granted she says she’s the writer of the lyrics, and the beats…but it’s not her voice. The girl signed a $3 million deal. Is it working harder and not smarter or is it unethical and not respected? While I see both sides, I can’t help but to wonder…what does the future look like with all this AI?

I think streaming is one element that I feels like shows my age. As someone who vlogs, and enjoys it, I just can’t get with the idea of living my life on live for long hours at a time for viewers just to watch. Even when Periscope first came out, it was the first streaming service I knew of, I was not a fan. Of course I joined, I watched, and maybe have went live a couple times, but I was just never big on it. Then with current social platforms, they always say going live helps your profile, but it literally makes cringe at myself. It makes me feel icky. It just don’t feel right and because they say it “helps” push your page, I think it’s creepy that they always want us to go live and just share more and more. You would think we have enough of ourselves on the internet to begin with.

Now if you look around, going live is thee thing. The streamers now are literally taking over, getting big deals, and creating their own lane which is very admirable. I just think I’m too old for that, nor do I want to. I’m just not even a big fan of watching people on live. You got a good 30 minutes out of me and that’s about it. I think there’s a big difference from vlogging and being able to stop the camera and edit exactly what you want to be shown, curating the content. Again, I love sharing on the internet and vlogging, but “creating content” is enough, and somethings should be left private, and there are times when I really do want to put my phone down and shut the hell up. I believe that everything is not content.

This made me think of the “Fifteen Million Merits”, Black Mirror episode with Daniel Kaluuya. In the episode, Daniel wakes up in a room surrounded by screens (just like we do with our phones) and he has to ride a stationary bike (work) to earn merits to live, which is their version of currency. Their day to day consists of watching various streams of different shows, playing games, not having enough money to skip ads, and going to work in the mundane. Basically he goes on this show which mimics shows like American Idol or X-Factor, for a chance to get get off the bike and possibly be a star at live a life of luxury. The crazy part is that he buys a girl he likes a ticket for the show because she can kinda sing. Well, the judges thought her singing was good enough for her to land her own stream to get off the bike, but not good enough because her only option is to go on the porn stream. Of course, the girl doesn’t want to do it, but the pressure from the audience (which is the other peers on the bikes represented by Wii-like avatars characters) and the judges overcomes her and she agrees to do it so that she can live in luxury and not be in the lower class on the bike. Sounds like OnlyFans right?

Well Daniel goes on the show, does some crazy dance, but he does all this just to basically go on a rant about how the system that they’re living in is fake and fucked up and threatens to cut his neck with glass. While he’s yelling into the abyss, the judges basically offer him his own show for 30 minutes twice a week to go on these same rants which will end up being content and essentially falling on deaf ears. Because he agrees, he’s now living in a luxury apartment playing into the exact system he was just talking shit about. So in theory he’s stuck in the same rotation of 24-hour surveillance, becoming a streamer for others consumption but in return, he’ll get to live above the average. Did he sell out or is it justified since it made his life better?

When I first watched Black Mirror in 2017, I definitely thought…woah, this is crazy, and there has to be some truth in all these stories because it has to come from somewhere, but I never would’ve thought in less than 10 years later, we would damn near be living in almost every episode.

I don’t understand why this generation would rather binge watch other people living their lives in real time instead of living their own, but I guess that’s why we call them iPad kids. Like when I heard about Ryan’s World, the kid who got famous from playing with his own toys on YouTube…I knew these kids brains were fried.

But shout out to the big streamers like Kai Cenat, Duke Dennis, Brooklyn Frost, and the rest of the kids, because they’re really creative and making a new never before seen lane. It looks fun, and exciting, because they’re really having their way. Waking up, bringing their ideas to life, doing it with their crew, and the opportunities and the money that they’re making is life changing. I probably would be trying to do the same if I didn’t have these thoughts.

My guess would be that eventually it gets tired. Nothing belongs to you, people expect every moment, and you start to feel like a show monkey forever shuckin’ and jivin’ to make your money for other people’s entertainment. I can say I’m guilty as well, but there’s levels to it for me. It makes me wonder if the freedom that we’re all chasing is all just a figment of our imagination.

Like yea people are making bank, but what will this dynamic will look like in the next 5 years? What you think?

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