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iStealyournewspapers t1_iy90sew wrote

Reply to comment by Guypussy in A Brief Guide to Encountering a Weeping Person in Public in NYC by bikeskata

That’s how my recording sessions generally went. I’d most often record to or from work on the 6 from 86th st to Bleecker or back, so if they were on that whole time, they were probably getting filmed the whole time. I just checked and her video is about 13 mins long. Also i got it wrong and it was actually a lady standing up that handed her a tissue early on in the video, and the crying girl used it the whole time, and then at the very end as she gets to her stop she collects herself and apologizes to the guy next to her saying something like “im sorry, im so embarrassed”, and he’s just incredibly sweet to her and tells her it’s ok, and puts his hand on her shoulder as a comforting gesture. Pretty sure he was gay so it wasn’t anything to be creeped out by. Very touching moment. I get why people would be bothered by the fact that I recorded it, but in 100 years when we’re all dead if this clip is still out there somewhere, I think people would be glad it’s something they can watch. Like imagine if we could watch people for extended periods on trains before film cameras were a thing. Who doesn’t love that footage of NY in the early 20th century? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aohXOpKtns0

Also I think it’s even better when people have no idea they’re being filmed and they’re just behaving 100% naturally.

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JFCGoOutside t1_iy9515l wrote

JFC. You mean back in the day when they had huge cameras on tripods and like ten people standing around and not some creep pretending they’re not filming you for a ‘project.’ I’ve seen a few people get confronted for doing shit like this on the train.

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iStealyournewspapers t1_iy9buqn wrote

I see you lack foresight. Also there are plenty of people in that old footage completely unaware that there’s a camera filming them.

Who fucking cares anyway? There are cameras filming us all the time and we don’t even know it. Everywhere you go in NY you’re being recorded by a camera you can’t see. So what? It’s not like I’m doing anything bad with the footage.

I’ve caught a couple people recording me for who knows what reason and I didn’t care. I look like a couple famous people so I suspect it was a foreigner who wasn’t sure but wanted to capture me just in case.

And your thing about being confronted is way more of a risk these days than it was back in 2009 or 2010 when I was doing this. A lot of people still didn’t have smart phones and people were far less worried about being recorded in public like they are today.

These days an incident happens and basically everyone watching can record it and post it online. So people feel more threatened by the idea now than they did then. Of the 200+ times I made a recording, not once did anyone confront me. I wouldn’t expect the same today, and that’s part of why I don’t bother with this sort of thing anymore. It had its day.

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Jgflight86 t1_iy9k35g wrote

Your comments originally creeped me out, perhaps they still do a bit. Yet they gave me quite a lot to think about today; the nature of candid recordings/photography, art vs. documenting vs. surveillance, what is and isn't okay in a public setting, etc.

There's no denying that out in public we're on camera whether we want to be or not. It's just surprisingly interesting to read your reasoning and have me second guessing myself.

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iStealyournewspapers t1_iy9s15m wrote

Thanks for your balanced take on it. I admitted from the beginning that I feel a bit bad about it now. I don’t really regret it because for me it was part of my art practice, and it ultimately does no harm to the video’s subject if no one else sees it, but I still understand why someone might be bothered by the fact that I did it. Also back then I was like 22 and had a very different and less mature perspective on things. Seeing someone crying like that would just make me extremely sad now, whereas before I think I had more of that youthful lack of empathy that most people grow out of.

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