Everyone is an expert. A photographer, a writer, a fashion connoisseur. Everyone is a food critic, a reviewer of TV and movies, a self-help guru, an activist that sits in front of the computer and reblogs articles written by others about issues they themselves are not fighting.
Do you have a phone? You're a photographer. A blog? You're a writer. Do you wear clothes? You're a fashion expert. Do you eat daily meals and frequent restaurants? You're a food critic of the highest caliber, instead of a notepad and a boss at some newspaper or magazine, you are armed with your phone, a hasty opinion, and a blog to publish your own reviews. But are they reviews, or are they merely a need to be heard in a way that makes you feel like your opinion is above others?
What happens when all mediums are saturated to the point of bursting? When everyone and their mothers and cousins and best friends are self-proclaimed expert? What happens to the writers that labor intensely year after year working on something that they believe in when no one knows they exist? What happens to the actual photographers that don't post to Instagram and actually see their craft as an art form and not a smartphone trend? What happens to those that do not follow trends, that live and breathe fashion because it is their way of life and not just something they morphed themselves into?
Is it all vanity? self-expression? insecurity seeking approval? The want of attention? Are all these people artists? trend-seekers? bandwagon jumpers? Or do they just want to fit in and they'll find whatever means available? Are artists determined by the amount of struggle they can endure in their craft, by the amount of years they are willing to sacrifice in order to create something that goes beyond the internet? Do artists know that they're artists when they look in the mirror? Or are artists oblivious to what they are and only care about what they do with their creativity?
If you care about fashion, is merely wearing your clothes in the way that you want enough or must you show others how grand of a wardrobe shifter you are? Do you love that dish that you made from scratch and the experience of savoring it? Or must you post every meal you ingest to remind yourself how healthy you are, how organic you eat, how meat doesn't enter your system? Is writing enough? If I wrote this book for five years and no more than five people read it and got something from its pages, would that be enough? If you go on a trip, go to an event, visit a museum or a park or a lake or river, is that experience enough? Does the experience itself have meaning only when others know you went there?
It seems that we are exhausted from being satisfied by the experience of something, the experience of writing or eating food or wearing clothes and we want the experience to last forever, to be 'liked' by others, to be seen, to be archived on some server. We cannot eat with friends and have the memory in our heads, we cannot take a photograph without sharing it, we cannot go somewhere without letting someone know where we are. We have always been afraid of solitude, but now our experiences cannot be ours alone. We are needy and the experience of something that lasts a few minutes, a few hours, is not enough. We want more, we demand more and we shall use the internet and technology to make sure we have it and the whole world knows what we do and who we paint ourselves to be.
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