By Christian Schneider
Thursday, June 20, 2024
On May 8, residents of the Flatiron district of
Manhattan were treated to what was being billed as a transformative new public
art installation: The Portal – a large round screen — beamed live video of the
New York street scene to residents of Dublin, Ireland, while live video of
Dubliners appeared on-screen in New York.
It was only one of several planned “portals” meant to
virtually teleport people across the globe. Organizers pitched it as “a symbol
of unity and wonder that draws in crowds from far and wide” — a “technology
sculpture that is built to last for centuries.”
It lasted six days.
Anyone who has actually spent any time with other human
beings knows what happened immediately after the portal’s unveiling. The
Dubliners greeted their New York counterparts with middle fingers and photos of
the Twin Towers burning on 9/11 (so much for “unity and wonder”). The New
Yorkers gave it right back when an OnlyFans model famous for licking toilet
seats raised her shirt, displaying her “homegrown potatoes” for
the unsuspecting Irish.
Perhaps this is a fitting way to portray America to the
world, given that no matter which candidate voters choose, we are going to
elect a boob to the presidency in November. But on May 14, the portal was shut
down. Several days later, it went back up with limited hours and an added
security detail.
The portal debacle is just one recent example of why we
can’t have nice things. With America’s cultural compact fraying, people have
confused individualism for selfishness, trashing our ability to take advantage
of technological innovations.
In March, Walmart announced plans to change the way its self-checkout lanes are used,
giving stores the ability to limit the lanes to people who pay a $98 annual
fee. At the same time, Target stores announced a plan to limit self-checkout lanes to those buying ten
items or fewer.
The stores themselves pitched the changes as something
customers wanted to improve about their in-store experience, but that is
nonsense. Too many people were using self-checkout to shoplift, so now the
convenience has to be curtailed.
And the crackdown on self-service isn’t limited to
big-box stores. During the pandemic, food chains like Chipotle set up
easy-to-use systems where customers could order and pay on their phones, then
dart into the restaurant and grab their food off a shelf. But now, many
restaurants require customers to approach the counter and ask for their food,
as too many people were pilfering meals off the shelf. (Pity the young man or
woman who grew up seeing the Hamburglar as an aspirational figure.)
Of course, the impulse to make people miserable for the
hell of it has always run deep within humanity. Back in 1993, Saturday
Night Live ran a sketch called “Ruining It for Everyone,” which
depicted a talk show in which guests brag about driving off before paying for
their gas (requiring gas stations to then demand payment up front), attacking
people who give them a ride (leading to the end of hitchhiking), and urinating
all over a public bathroom (leading restaurants to restrict use of their
restrooms to customers).
But it seems like ruining simple life amenities has been
accelerated in the new era of expansive technology. Earlier this year, Airbnb
announced a new ban on surveillance cameras within its
rental units, leading consumers to say, “Wait a minute, surveillance cameras
were allowed before this?” The landlords who had them may have damaged the
innovative brand, which could send people stampeding back to hotels.
Recently, Disneyland and Disney World had to crack down on the rapidly growing
number of people who claimed disability status in order to avoid long wait
times on the rides at their amusement parks. Undoubtedly, word spread through
social media and other channels that this was a way to game the system, leaving
rule-abiding patrons waiting in longer lines.
People may not actually be acting worse than in the past,
but their modern transgressions are often more shocking because they want us to
know about their boorish behavior. We are adrift on a sea of “influencers,” and
nobody can influence anything if what they’re doing remains unknown. Indecency
is the passcode to attention, which is the most valued currency we now possess.
(The OnlyFans model who flashed the Irish claims she raked in $10,000 in new subscriptions after the
stunt, so there can also be a financial incentive. “Thanks for the mammaries,”
indeed.)
That is why we now live in a world of truculent elected
officials who blow up congressional hearings, goading fellow lawmakers or
witnesses to yell at them to make sure the cameras are pointed their way and
they get their one-minute clip. This same behavior is why decent, sane social
media can’t exist — when trolling is rewarded, everyone else suffers.
Naturally, the desire to spoil things to suit your own
end is a strong impulse on the left, as people who just want to walk across campus without being
harassed or not bake a wedding cake that violates
their own religious beliefs or start a taco truck while not being of
Latino origin have found out. On a per capita basis, there are only a handful
of climate-change activists in the world, but they are more than happy to deny
us all the ability to drive to work or view a piece of great art or even to leave ancient, awe-inspiring structures alone
to keep on weathering the centuries.
(The Right has a bit to learn as well. Like, maybe your
hurt feelings over losing an election aren’t worth trying to push the country
to the brink of a constitutional crisis.)
The lesson in all this: Don’t be the person yucking
everyone’s yum by demanding they use your preferred
terms like “Latinx,” don’t be the guy on social media trying to get someone
else fired for telling a joke, and no matter how much you love animals, don’t
harass me if my next meal isn’t soybeans dressed as a hamburger for Halloween.
In other words, just be cool. Because now if you’re a
lunatic, people can see it all the way from Dublin.
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