Dear young adults of the modern world and Snapchat,
Back in the day when people still used a phone book and shopped at malls instead of Amazon, your elders recorded events on a suitcase-sized video camera. The end product was a tape that we would watch once, label with a generic title no one would recall, then store it somewhere to collect dust. A great system.
Except for when everything went to compact discs.
So, we transferred our boxes of tapes onto CDs and watched them once more before packing them beside the family scrapbooks (those large leather binders your mothers pull out on birthdays). A great system.
Except for when everything went digital.
You see where this is going, right?
Which leads me to one of the best gifts I’ve given to myself: I shipped my CDs and videotapes to a company that returned them to me via email. Now I have decades of memories on my laptop and something called a “cloud” that I never update. And — get this — I can share these life jewels with one simple click. Voila! This experience has been so rewarding that I’ve become a digital-memory-sharing fool, texting and emailing recordings to friends and family whose response is usually, “Oh. My.”
What? This has been around for a while, you say? Look, no one likes a smarty pants. Give a middle-aged woman a break.
My sisters were very impressed, OK? Yes, one of them still uses a phone book. And your point would be what, exactly?
A word of advice: At some point in your life, you will visit home. Your mom or dad or loved one over the age of 50 will invite you to sit on the couch for a minute. Hold on. Put down your iPhone. Your fake Instagram can wait. (See? I know things.) Take a deep breath as they turn on their laptop, click on a folder to another folder to a subfolder with a link that doesn’t work. Keep breathing.
“Here it is!” your elder will exclaim as a video appears.
It’s you in spectacular digitized glory appearing on the screen at your second birthday party when you wanted to play with the paper more than the present. When the celebration spotlight became just a tad too bright for your young, paper-loving soul and the screaming of your toddler birthday guests and Aunt Martha shoving cake in your mouth propelled you to fall into an emotional puddle in the middle of the kitchen floor. And when your mom, the resident crisis-mitigation expert, rushed to rescue you also accidentally knocked off the Curious George birthday cake which fell on top of her and you and Aunt Martha.
That video.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” your elder will ask, wiping away a tear. “Let’s watch your first bath next.”
Here is what I want you to do, oh young one. Four simple suggestions:
1. Pause before saying a word. Then respond with “OK. I’d love to watch another video.” Say it with conviction like you’re watching Kendrick Lamar’s new music video. Emote.
2. Don’t point out that your parents wore the same outfit at every recorded event. They were exhausted. It’s a miracle they got dressed, let alone managed life, kids and everything in between.
3. Laugh when the elder laughs.
4. Refrain from leaving the couch or checking your phone.
On this last point, I recommend soaking in the fact that you are sitting beside someone who loves you enough to want to do nothing more than be with you and watch home videos of you and relive special moments about you.
See? It’s really all about you. It always has been. If you are lucky enough to figure this out, hug your weeping elder and make that moment about you both.
Then take a mental photograph. Trust me on this one, you’ll be glad you did. Especially about 30 years from now when a young one comes to visit and you ask your robot to project a very special recording in a 3D hologram.
“See that?” you’ll ask, wiping away a tear. “This was my second birthday and there are your grandparents. They loved you and me very much.”
You’re welcome.
Sincerely,
A Digitized Elder
