An Elegant Sufficiency

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In the wee small hours

I found myself wondering, why do people want to do this? Not just to take a photo in a cute place, but to join a queue of people to post a photograph online which is the same as hundreds of thousands of others, save for the individual person?

I can (more or less) see the fun to be had getting dressed up and going out to play with a couple of friends with cameras.

I might have chosen a more photogenic setting, however. Or perhaps I’m missing something - I’m aware that there are all kinds of significant places that go right over my head. Perhaps an eisode of Game of Thrones was filmed here or something? (I know, that’s a totally ridiculous example, but you get my drift?)

I can understand using the image in a creative or amusing way, like this.

I can understand taking a photo of a landmark as a souvenir or a memory of a place. I do that all the time, not only for posting and sharing, but sometimes as a reference or an aide memoire.

I suppose what I don’t get is the point of standing in line to take a quick snap - these people stood in front of the wings for no more than the time it took me to snap a picture from the bus - somewhere like this. Earlier in the year, I came across a story about a field of sunflowers, which had been totally overrun with Instagrammers

It’s a strange world.


If we didn’t have more interesting things to do, there are countless other murals here and there to stand in front of as well.