The Morbid Curiosity of Man

I was walking through Asda car park when I spotted around 6 full carrier bags spinning quickly through the air. They were attached to the arms of a woman who had just tripped on a kerb, and faceplanted on the concrete soon after. Fortunately I was far enough away that I didn't feel obliged to offer assistance, meaning I could piss myself laughing at the calamity. I wished I could've gotten that moment on camera.

What would we do with a device that could record our every moment? Something is inserted into your brain or eye socket giving you the opportunity to keep and share whatever you see or do with the rest of the World. It's not too far removed from what we currently do with Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and other social media means. We chronicle nearly every moment of our dull lives and share it with people that aren't really bothered.

@ValveCannon - "I just had a shit. It smelled like shit"

@TurdJunction - "Oh wowzers, look at what I've just eaten. LOL" twitpic shows snapshot of a tired looking ham sandwich

@HammerSmashFace - "Haha, just heard Eddie Murphy is dead. AGAIN! RT!

The difference would be you could live video feed directly from your life onto your TV screen. Realistically, are we far away from such a technological development?


The better of you will notice that I'm taking my lead from a couple of TV shows; Futurama, and Black Mirror.

Futurama series 5 (I refuse to count the feature length episodes as a separate series) episode 3 was called "The Eye-Phone" and featured a product much like what I mention above. Bearing in mind the show is set in the year 3000. Although it partly focusses on the behaviour of those people that love Apple products so much they would marry one given a chance, the main story centres around the ability to gain popularity through recording your life and posting funny clips to YouTube. It's one of the better episodes of the series and I recommend you watch it (available on US Netflix).

Episode 3 of Black Mirror is called "The Entire History of You" and, rather than the fun japery of the Planet Express Crew, this looks at a different kind of human nature when employing the "record your life" idea. It takes things a step further and leads you down a very dark corridor, and is tremendous viewing if you want to study the morbid curiosity of our being. The whole chuffing episode is available online to watch for free! Free, for fucks sake. You're still reading this fairly poor effort? Here, lazy person, is the link to the episode, copy and paste it into your browser. No excuses. No "I'm a Celebrity". Just watch this. Now. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/black-mirror/4od

Hopefully after that gentle push you've watched some truly excellent, thought-provoking television and returned to see if my writing gets any better in the second half. I wouldn't hold out much hope. My brain has been addled by a diet of exercise lately and it seems to be stifling my brain. However, like Hitler, I'll push forward.

You ever see those posts on Facebook where someone hasn't logged out and their mates have accessed it writing something fucking brilliant like "I love the cock", or the ever-popular and entirely original "I'm Gay". However dull, these "jokes" are generally a bit of harmless banter. From time to time we spot one which might just be a little more sinister, like a boyfriend who is posting on his girlfriend's Facebook status. They will post something mildly humorous (see above examples) but what they are really saying is "I have accessed your Facebook account just so you know I can check your messages at any time". Something not right there at all, but there are a lot of people out there who would do it as well given a chance. Checked your partner's phone to read their text messages? Gone through their bag? Put their underpants on your head, cut up all of their clothing and danced through their till receipts? You're not alone. Ask yourself, what is the best outcome, what do you expect to achieve? Most likely you find nothing. That's because most of us lead a fairly simple life and we are trustworthy. Then you're left feeling guilty at the fact you didn't trust them in the first place. So you check again in a few weeks because you're now convinced that they must've expected you to check so deleted anything incriminating. Or maybe you find something that confirms your partner has been doing something extra-curricular with your best friend. Which basically results is colossal fuck ups for all concerned. Just imagine if you could access all your partners thoughts and memories on a hard drive? There is no winner here. You will be left with only a hollow victory, taking nothing but a grim satisfaction that you were right. Think Geoff Tipps shouting "Well at least I won that one". That's you, that is.

While it would definitely be fun to record someone tripping over a kerb, slipping slightly on a wet surface, or being attacked by a feral cat I'm not entirely convinced that such an advancement in technology would benefit our people. We're just not ready. Still, if you could've seen that poor bastard falling over in Asda car park!