Big Brother
I noticed an odd little detail in the coverage of the recent celebrity shooting. There was an abundance of video footage of the shooter before and after the event. Good quality, too. And I imagine what we saw was only a taste of what the authorities had. It appears we’re on TV way more often than we realize, in places we might never expect it. Being of a literary bent, it reminds me of the Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984. He was always watching.
I think it might be too late to do anything about it, however, even if we wanted to. Heck, we do a great job of telling Big Brother where we are on our own thanks to social media, and let’s not forget our phones that ping our exact location to cell towers every moment they’re on. At least they only use that data to send us targeted ads, because we’re still valued as consumers. Threats, in the worse case, get hellfire missiles. Lesser value targets just get fired, or tagged.
It sure is a different world than the one I grew up in. We could disappear for hours and our folks had no idea where we were. It was the same when my kids were young. We counted on the neighbors to keep us posted. Oh, well. Times have changed, and this is where we are. Even I have cameras watching my yard at night. Mostly I get pictures of the fox and deer and the occasional cat and they’re not up to any exceptional villainy. But I guess I’m ready if real trouble ever comes my way.