In 2013, Nathan Jurgenson wrote an essay, "Pics and It Didn't Happen," in which he argued that the ephemeral nature of Snapchat photos serves a valuable purpose by reversing the assumption of photographic permanence and slowing, ever so slightly, the exponential accumulation of digital images that drives the value of each individual photo down toward zero. When every image lasts forever, we lose the privilege of choosing what to remember. Snapchat restores that privilege and thus "reinflates" the value of those images as well as the memories they correspond to: "Let’s face it, much of photography was already becoming Snapchat even before Snapchat existed...in the age of information immortality, the likely fate of the vast majority of images today is to be briefly consumed and quickly forgotten." Things that disappear more quickly, and have a built-in mortality, matter more.
#77: Perfect Sound Forever
#77: Perfect Sound Forever
#77: Perfect Sound Forever
In 2013, Nathan Jurgenson wrote an essay, "Pics and It Didn't Happen," in which he argued that the ephemeral nature of Snapchat photos serves a valuable purpose by reversing the assumption of photographic permanence and slowing, ever so slightly, the exponential accumulation of digital images that drives the value of each individual photo down toward zero. When every image lasts forever, we lose the privilege of choosing what to remember. Snapchat restores that privilege and thus "reinflates" the value of those images as well as the memories they correspond to: "Let’s face it, much of photography was already becoming Snapchat even before Snapchat existed...in the age of information immortality, the likely fate of the vast majority of images today is to be briefly consumed and quickly forgotten." Things that disappear more quickly, and have a built-in mortality, matter more.