Shooting (from the hip)

The responses to the recent NYC shooting made me stop and think (link and link to news reports).

I saw this exchange between duckrabbit and a few folks.

 

The discussion was presumably over the following image (although it may have been one of the two others here, my knowledge of Instagram filters is non-existent.):

 

Not being acquainted with Instagram I didn’t notice there was anything ‘odd’ about any of the images in question, nor that there was a possibility that one had perhaps been enhanced with an ‘aurora’ filter. I just saw pictures of a happening event in quite nice light, as recorded by bystanders, the ‘citizen journalists’ that mobile digital technology has transformed us all into. So here was a debate about the ‘appropriateness’ of instagram/filters on such an image. And asking the question: did the filter make the image too beautiful? Perhaps, but only if you knew it was a filter. What if the natural light was in reality quite stunning, a glorious dawn spilling across the scene? Was that somehow “too nice”?

I then read the responses to mr_mookie’s instagram image of the shooting scene with an injured  person lying in the street, and the polarized opinions being expressed over this picture and his caption. Several comments were directed specifically at mr_mookie’s caption:

“They shoot, aw made you look! No really tho. Dude got popped!”

 

 

Seems mr_mookie’s ‘error’ was to not only use a familiar (to him) cultural reference, but also to post his observation and image on Instagram. He’d reached for a chunk of language that made perfect sense to him in so far as this event was concerned, the lyrics from a song he knew well and felt was not only significant but appropriate to the moment, a shooting in a city.

The NAS song in question ‘Made you look’ , contains the following lyrics:

hey shootin’! — Aw made you look
You a slave to a page in my rhyme book
Gettin’ Big/”big” money, playboy your time’s up
Where them gangstas? Where them dimes at?

There’s enough being written elsewhere about the ‘controversy’ generated over the use of the images, the ‘insensitive’ caption, did mr_mookie take cash for his work or not, and so on. You can google it to your hearts content.

I was more interested in the use of filters.

Because I think it’s all about filters. The ‘filter’ that a ‘photographer’ reached for to enhance the aesthetic of their image made their Instagram look too ‘glorious’ and raised the hackles of a few viewers. But if the lighting is naturally glorious must the photographer reach for the ‘drab day murder’ filter to tone down the glory to make it more visually ‘acceptable’?

The ‘filter’ of hip-hop experience that mr_mookie reached for in the form of NAS lyrics to embellish his caption, raised the hackles of others and a lot of bandwidth got used up giving him a hard time for his apparent callousness.  But if the author had used, lets say a quote from Shakespeare, such as:

“Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully; Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods” (Julius Caesar Act 2, scene 1)

which is wholly appropriate given the backstory to the murder, would this be any more acceptable? Or would it have simply alienated a different group of people who did not understand the reference? Perhaps mr_mookie loves quoting Shakespeare but decided against it this time because he thought nobody would ‘get it’?

Brutus:
Let’s be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
. . . And, gentle friends,
Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds;
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide ’em.

In this age where ‘we are all journalists now’ with our smartphones and 24/7 networking, we are all connected.

Thats exciting. I can be part of it. I can participate in it, actively or passively. Revel in the on-the-spot-passerby narrative, watch it unfolding in real time, delivered to me wherever I am, on a bus, on the train, at home, bringing an immediacy to events in a way we’ve never experienced before.

However the major disconnect in all of this, and for me potentially quite troubling in its divisiveness, is the cultural distance between us.

We see things unfold through other’s filters, through the filter of their life experience and world view, their varying cultural references, and that ‘view’ gives a certain flavour to their observations. A flavour that others may fail to understand, or at worst utterly detest. And with these distractions we potentially lose sight of the message: two men died, tragically and unnecessarily.

And thats a ‘filter’ problem no smart phone manufacturer will ever ‘fix’ with a firmware upgrade.