Trawling through the internet and Facebook the other day caused me to realize how fragmented experiences are getting these days. When I go to a party, photos are now expected to be taken and put up on Facebook. Same with trips overseas or across country; people upload a mess of photos and that's it; travelogue completed. The verbal element is all but eliminated and the days of regailing your friends with tales of your sojourn are over. "Here are all my pictures, you figure it out." Its sort of like the Lonely Planet guide you'd find in Fahrenheit 451. I know, I know, I'm an 80 year old trapped in a 22 year old body; call me old-fashioned for wanting to hear or read stories instead of looking at pictures. It's sort of like an on-demand travel slide-show party.
Don't get me wrong, I love the concept of on-demand. I don't sit down to watch TV any more; I download pretty much everything ahead of time (FastTrack just ain't fast enough) or shows that I can't get on TV where I live. Intelligent and brilliant shows such as Breaking Bad, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia or Snuff Box don't play in Australia (absent from both free-to-air and Pay TV) and if I want to see them, I'll have to download them. In the absence of a Hulu.com style service which I would gladly pay a nominal, reasonable fee for, I'm sort of forced to.
Australia seems to be the orphaned bastard child when it comes to distributed media services (especially when our fourth-rate internet service needs to be employed in order for it to function) and politicians and media owners wonder why no one bothers to invest in our entertainment and media industry.
Tomorrow (my time) shall be a most momentous occasion indeed.