Enough With The Pictures Already!

I have a digital camera. I use it a lot. If I'm out walking, I'll take pictures of various things I find visually interesting. If I'm out with friends, I, and all of my friends it seems, will take random snapshots of the evening's goings on. Before I get started, I'll say right away that I am well aware of the contradictory nature of complaining about something that I do, but I'm okay with contradiction. It's one of my many middle names. But it has gone too far. I remember a time. A time not so long ago. Perhaps a better, if slightly less technologically advanced, time. It was a time when I could go out with friends, drink way too much, make an absolute fool of myself, feel a little embarrassed the next day, laugh about it with those friends, and move on. Those days are gone. Now, in every crowd, there's always some joker with a digital camera or phone just waiting to pounce. At the first sign of drunken tomfoolery, the snapshots start coming thick and fast. And when in the past you had that slight embarrassment the next day, it was coupled with vague stories and a blurry memory. But now, you have the blurry memory coupled with photographic evidence. Damn embarrassing photographic evidence at that. In some cases, edited into a montage with musical accompaniment. I believe that inherent in mockery, is a desire for social control. As in, we laugh at you, because you are acting somewhat out of line with our social norms. We laugh at you because that is a simple first attempt to bring you back into line. But the mockery that accompanies drunken photos, especially ones posted on the interweb, has none of that element to it. No one wants you to stop with the drunken shenanigans...they want it to continue so they can have more drunken shenanigan photos. It's downright mean spirited, I tell you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to sort through my digital camera photos to figure out which drunken friends I can embarrass here.