Is this the end.. of the Selfie?
Hop on, it’s a selfie train.
(Said no one ever.)
Comparatively, we have mega magazines that have $150k spreads that get dysfunctioned with one snap of a phone cam, in a beautiful reservoir or canyon while traveling…
Is it really the picture, or the photographer that makes that shot, that gets the final cut by the editor -that makes it to publish- to promote that product, or issue?
When typical issues get landslides of digital reads, or marketing promotions -not just likes or re-posts or shares, but a value of interaction that could be a tool upgrade to just “words on a page”, it could be the make or break — where a little still-as-a-muggle selfie could, somehow the video instapost with moving-images reel, is rather more valuable now, and as thoughtful as possible it is made using the same stringent photo editing suites that used to occupy entire editing studio rooms, but are now in the palm of your hands -in both the laptop and the iphone.
The cameras are as comparable as an 12-MP iPhone app, to a digital M-Leica.
This has its ups (& no real downs) to both personal or social users on platform — but to an industry that had its pivot points composited, or compressed or cut corners by technology, it is as if selfies are the new editorials. Painful and crucially, shaved off budgets as if entire teams have been laid off for that one shot that a model-writer-publisher-product owner-in one influencer has now wielded in their possession.
Sticky campaigns are like the Photograph you held that pose for hours for, and polished in post-production. But the same photo, can be candidly composed and manipulated in an application in a matter of minutes, or in a day (at the longest).
Are we killing the campaigns with the “budget strategy”, or are we killing jobs that held the legacy of an industry?
From a business point of view, this is an easy choice -to rescue time, and bottom lines. But, for the Creative industry, there is a fine line.
Should we fall short of advisory jobs, there are a fast rising supply of just laid off creative industry artists, writers and on-cam talents that have been replaced by fly-by-nights, and self-made (ex-unhireable) desireables.
This is a good problem, since the two generations that have just gotten out of school from pandemic and childhood global economic maladies that led to fleeing stable homes, are now in need of a credible stand where there wouldn’t be a problem to enter workforce without a “historical” vouching for. The expatriates that had just gotten two-year incomes from being stuck in places during the pandemic, and other global incapacity would just be needing an income patch, where digitally the industries that make the most, need the least at economic downturns.
So, the release of technology to support the network with its supply of talent, are primarily a good save for the fringe-fallout which takes a good year and a half to track with government economic agencies, well within after their ill-timed income recovery.
So, don’t be all about banging on about how technology is too elitist, when it actually saves all our backs, when time is only a crunch and a half to your industry becoming extinct — at least more on this one thing called blogging.
Maybe, keep an eye and ear on trends, and keep your devices fresh with the regimental software upkeep, and maybe listen to your *”friendly neighbourhood geniuses”* for necessary things as upgrades, and (should you vie for new things on platform and markets), when your killer apps aren’t just for downloading on café wifi for efficiency - maybe just get in a timely refreshing chat, from time to time.
