Vine Connections
By: Natalie Rollo
Today I was just sitting at home playing around on my iPhone and I decided to
explore the most popular Vines. For those of you who don’t know what Vine is,
it is an app on the iPhone that allows people to take about a six-minute video
of something they find funny or important that they want to share with their
followers. I watched each video as I scrolled down the page, laughing and
I finally came to a video that was about the iPhone. The video consisted of two
guys who were talking on the phone about different technologies. One guy brags
that he got the new iPhone 6 yesterday and he is holding an iPad to his ear.
The camera then turns to another guy that screams that he got the new iPhone 20
today and it is a huge flat screen TV that he is holding up to this ear. I
laughed, but this video also made me think and make a connection to the term
technological imperative and McLuhan’s views that we read about this week.
The point of this video was to be funny obviously, but also to prove a point
about our society. One day there was an iPhone 6 created and then
twenty-four hours later there was an iPhone 20. We are changing so quickly; it
is out with the old and in with the new as some say and McLuhan agrees. In his writing, he discussed how information and new technologies are being thrown at us at an
impossible rate that it is impacting our history and way of life as this Vine video
showed through its sarcasm of fourteen different versions of the iPhone being
created in just twenty-four hours.
The idea of technological imperative also came into
mind while watching this video. A saying I found that goes along with this term
is ‘what can be done, will be done’. In other words, if we have an opportunity
to purchase a new piece of technology or try one out, we are most likely going
to take advantage of it. In the Vine video the iPhone 20 is a huge big flat
screen TV that is most likely pretty heavy for someone to carry around all of
the time and won't fit into a purse or pocket. Even though it is huge and
inconvenient this guy went out and bought it and bragged about it to his
friends. Why is this? This is a question that can’t really be answered because
the fact is that our society just craves new technology and we will take all we
can get.
*I could not find the exact vine video to post on our blog, but I found a similar YouTube video. I apologize it is a terrible video and in Spanish, but you can assume what they are saying and get the gist of it. They go through different versions of the iPhone until they come to an iPhone 20.
Too funny- and too true. Without understanding a word they were saying I got the message. I wonder if advancements in technology are driving our consumerism or, the other way around. If people kept their phones/computers/cars/etc. instead of trading up for the latest, biggest, or smallest would the progression of technologies slow down.
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