Pictures are mirrors

I recently started using a blog feed program and decided to add some local blogs to see how the rest of LA lives; man was that an eye-opener. I thought of myself as less naive than others but I think that’s made me more ignorant than I imagined. The Los Angeles I know, the one that I love and hate, doesn’t even exist to most of those that write about this city. The city I know is merely a subplot in some screenplay, a mere backdrop to the real action happening elsewhere. I learn this everyday when I scroll through the latest postings that make their way to my indiscriminate collection of feeds, a virtual grab-bag of snide commentary, cynical (back) stabs at honesty, and most revealing, derisive opinions about others that speak volumes about the observers own upbringing (class, culture, values) than they do about the subject being mocked.

Take for example these photo sets that have been linked somewhere. Yes, much of it made me laugh and some of the contributed commentary is spot on. It’s just a click away to soak in a bunch of pictures that let you laugh at fools wearing the wrong garments, yet you remain relatively anonymous, a guilty pleasure that is easy to indulge. It’s kinda fucked up, the person getting insulted doesn’t even have the chance to punch you in the face, and that’s probably why I find it mildly disturbing. This new form of random shooting highlights the worst aspects of the internet: a tool for communication becomes yet another way to belittle others. Instead of pushing for an expanded potential, the road of isolated sniping gets another traveller. It’s high school without repercussions. Though they may be in their “right”, what does it say about the photographer that hunts down the next subject aware that they will be an object of ridicule? What should we make of those that expend energy just to capture an unsuspecting person in their worst possible light?

I’ve been perplexed knowing that some of my fellow LA citizens have such an odd, almost misanthropic, vision of our mutual place, almost as if we lived in two very different cities. I’m having to reassess my understanding of Los Angeles and the people within it, and it seems very likely that, despite the proximity, we really do live in different places.