It is possible that one could argue that the YouTube generation didn’t really begin in February of 2005 (the month the site was launched), or even in 2003 (the year in which William Gibson deftly outlined the basic framework of a similar site in his novel Pattern Recognition). One could easily make a case that the YouTube generation was born on March 3, 1991. This is the day that Rodney King was brutally beaten by several Los Angeles policemen and the day that George Holliday, a private citizen who happened to be looking out of his window when the beating occurred, captured the entire episode on videotape. And while some might suggest that YouTube’s crowning achievement is the appointment of YOU as Time Magazine’s 2006 Person of the Year, history may suggest that the defining moment for the toddler brand was the moment the uncensored, unedited cell phone footage of the hanging of Saddam Hussein was posted to the site.
In analyzing the videotape of the Rodney King beating, one could assess it as a serendipitous recording of a tragic event. But when the 35-second film was released to the public, it sent shockwaves and horror throughout the nation. It quickly became a defining moment both in the politics of law enforcement and in domestic race relations.
The video was an example of inverse surveillance, (citizens watching police) and the filming of real-life events by “real people” has quickly become one of the leading indicators of cultural trends. The way in which the general public has utilized the mass availability of video footage for cultural discourse is now highly measurable. Michael Richard’s captured racist diatribe and U.S. Republican Senator George Allen’s recorded racial slurs are two recent examples of how the impact of instantaneous access can severely damage a career or ruin a political campaign. According to Ed Driscoll: “In an era of demassified individual publishing, the safety net that the liberal mass media provided its favorite sons no longer exists.”
In what seemed like moments after the execution (which had been rumored to be officially photographed), the recorded cell-phone footage of Saddam Hussein falling through the trap door of primitive wooden gallows spread like wildfire on the Internet and not surprisingly, on YouTube. The recorded footage is gruesome and features a moment-by-moment record of the noose being put around Saddam Hussein’s neck, the executioners taunting him, and most horrifically, what he looked like when the trap door was thrown open and he fell to his death.
No doubt the video was taken to prove that Saddam Hussein was indeed executed. For those that may be skeptical of this motivation, please consider the various conspiracy theories that abound about the deaths of Adolph Hitler, President John F. Kennedy and even Kenneth Lay.
The Saddam Hussein footage is horrifying. But it is also informative. Now we definitively know the truth and can attribute this knowledge to the public online viewing of smuggled footage taken from a cell phone. What we can now call, for lack of a better term, public surveillance.
But at what price, this public information? What does it say about our humanity that we are witnessing this event in this way? Is it acceptable behavior to be documenting an event like this, or does that even matter when an event like this actually occurs? London Times journalist Rosemary Behan believes it is. “Even more chilling,” she wrote in an article published last week, “is the thought that without the escape of this amateur video we would still be in the dark about what really happened, and about the true and apparently now official nature of the sectarian forces driving Iraq. In that we must be thankful for the truth, however sordid it is.”
I have seen the video and it is indeed sordid. Of this, I am quite sure. But should the graphic details have been posted for the entire world to see and celebrate? Of this, I am not so sure.
I find it strange that people would feel the need for "proof," particularly in an age where "proof" is ever more elusive. If contingents of people are willing to believe that the holocaust never happened or that the Moon landing was staged on a set, I doubt that a grainy cel-phone recording is going to provide that incontrovertable evidence they so hanker for. Those who approve of this on the grounds that it provides some kind of peace of mind are deluding themselves at the very least.
This movement of "inverse surveillance" is interesting, both in its impact on the power structure and in the way we see the world (myself, I have a particular interest in how photography has, is and will change due to man/woman/child-on-the-street shooting), but rubbernecking is just rubbernecking no matter how you dress it up. We are so used to seeing corpses splayed out across the movie/TV screen that it seems OK, or "informative," to display these in real life. But is it OK to watch someone — anyone — die? Do people have a basic human right to die in peace?
The reason why criminals are executed in relative private (with only a few witnesses to verify that it actually happened) is because at some point in our history we stopped putting people in stocks and parading them through the streets; we stopped public hangings and beheadings; we decided as a society to give people this one last piece of respect.
Someone may not think that Saddam Hussein or other individuals deserve our respect, however small, but personally I think we have to redraw that line. If the respect is not given on their behalf, it is not taken on our own.
I have not seen the video of Hussein's hanging: not because I haven't been curious, but because ultimately I asked myself "Why?" and my reason didn't feel so good to me. So for my own self respect, I've chosen not to stoop to watching people in their last moments of life ... unless I love them very, very much.
On Jan.10.2007 at 10:58 PM