Monday 8 August 2016

Policing Digital Decency and the Depravity of the New World Order

I was visiting a friend at Central Memorial Park when a boisterous Englishwoman hollered out to me on my way to the restroom. "I like your handbag. Is it Marc Jacobs?" she asked, noticing my green purse that has since its purchase two Christmases ago become an appendage. The thing was olive green when I first bought it but now has a distinct dark blue hue to the leather on the back from rubbing up against my jeans when walking. "Yes, it is," I replied, surprised she could pin-point the designer from afar. "Are you a rep or something?" I asked.
"No, I just like handbags," she replied. I realized later it's relatively easy to spot bags by Marc Jacobs because their logo is embossed on most of their products and is a distinctly outlined rectangle but that had slipped my mind. "Look at all these people with their heads in their phones," she continued, using her hands to make a sweeping gesture out towards the park. "They're all playing that Pokemon Go." I looked out and laughed. Leave it to the English, I thought, to be astute and keenly aware of their surroundings. It was a nice Wednesday evening in Calgary and the park was busy, but no more than normal on a hot day so I had paid no mind to the loitering that was happening near the cenotaphs and nearby fountains as my associate and I had chosen to drink pints of beer at the Boxwood Cafe fenced off from the park. The Englishwoman was alone and had finished her drink and left by the time I returned from the bathroom but I couldn't help studying the players and their peculiar rituals after she left.

Now today's front page of the Calgary Sun blasts these Pokemon players, calling theatrically for them to

 SHOW SOME RESPECT!

as veterans and families of veterans are outraged at the misuse of the parks and memorial sites. Veterans Affairs Canada posted a tweet echoing this, asking players to refrain from playing when visiting Canadian War Cemeteries and Memorials. That would be difficult, however, as apparently Central Memorial is the city's largest Pokemon attraction with three "Pokestops" at separate memorials, including the cenotaphs. I have never played the game and have more interest in shaving my Dad's back than picking it up as a hobby, but it has now touched a nerve that I do have interest in: the decency of digital device use and how it's near impossible to police--aside from calling for a call toward it. A situation like this is similar to the outcry over people taking selfies at other such places that deserve respect and screen-free reflection like Auschwitz and Ground Zero in New York. But you visit these places and see more often than not the opposite happening. I was at Ground Zero, overcome with heavy thoughts, when a tourist beside me asked a 'merchant' selling picture books of the towers on fire to take a photo of him and his family. The merchant put his books down for a second and snapped the shot of the family with all of them smiling like they were in front of the Cinderella Castle at Disneyland. 

In Japan all iPhones are shipped with the shutter sound permanently on because of privacy concerns over the lecherous phenomenon known as "up-skirt photography." This was not an action taken by law, but rather by all Japanese cell-phone vendors in an effort to curb voyeurism in that country. Then there's the recent case of Playboy Playmate Dani Mathers who lost her gym membership in L.A. after taking a naked photo of another woman in the change room and posting it to social media. Here the police were involved on grounds of an "illegal distribution" of the image and damages could be sought for a hefty sum if the woman decides to sue.
Most will agree that taking cheap sneak shots of women's crotches or buttocks' is tasteless and that wearing a skirt on public transit or being naked in a change room doesn't warrant the gratuitous use of cell-phone cameras, but the the slippery slope before getting to obvious places like these is easy to see. How are we to determine what it's ok to take photos of and where it's ok to take photos and play games and where it's not? Where's the criteria? Should we be teaching appropriate digital media use to children in schools? In the case of memorial sites, however, I would wager it's a hard thing to teach; that respect for the fallen or compassion for human suffering should levy a reach that extends further than one's pocket or purse. One could perhaps teach appreciation for the severity of circumstances that caused the sites to be erected in the first place, but it would take a lot deeper of an appreciation to overcome a want that has become second nature and borderline involuntary. The constant documenting of most aspects of daily life -from the routine to the spectacular-- and the playing of internet games in every corner of the world.

 Maybe instead we need to work on new technology that makes areas like a memorial site impenetrable to wi-fi waves and sends some sort of electro paralysis signal to your phone, rendering it inoperable for the duration you're there. But until major technological players make like the Japanese phone companies and intervene, I seriously doubt people will simply refrain from using their devices at inappropriate places just because some people might find it offensive.  It would be nice to think these players read the front cover of the Sun and the write-up inside but my guess is unless the paper hosted a Charizard or the next Pokestop, their heads were too focused on their phones to pay any attention to the headlines.



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