Outside, the mild rain is building its way up to a downpour. Thin nylon and cardboard caps are getting soaked steadily as several hundred graduates are piled on top of each other waiting for a keynote speaker to finish so they can hear their name being called. On the face, it seems like the worst possible cost/benefit analysis - three hours in the rain for twenty seconds worth of excitement. No matter the pompous nature of the event, or what anyone else says, there's a good chance that you and your parents are there just to hear your name and watch you walk across the stage with your diploma in hand.
Inside, a group of parents, friends and siblings who keep nodding off are watching the ceremony on closed circuit television. Everyone is just slightly damp, and there's not enough seats for everyone, but it's warm and the sound quality is pretty solid. From my spot standing in the corner, I can barely make out what's happening on the screen because of the angle I'm at, but I imagine it's a stuff white guy trying to look impressive and talking about the road of life. Open doors. New paths. Exciting times. He folds the last page of his speech and thanks the audience, and as he moves away from the microphone a strange thing happens: The people in my room start clapping.
They start clapping with abandon.
People are applauding a screen. They are applauding the flattened image of a man being displayed in a remote location. They are clapping at the sound waves coming through speakers several hundred feet away from the man's actual voice. At once, this seems both natural and unusual.
After all, what is the purpose of clapping? I venture to say that it's to show appreciation to a performer. Thus, it seems that, to be meaningful, a speaker should be able to hear the applause. If a speaker isn't aware of his applause, does it even matter to him?
I caught a glimpse of this feeling a while back when a friend and I were asked to perform a slam poetry piece for another friend's video project. Instead of delivering the words to a small crowd of coffee shop kids, the rumble of espresso machines and shuffling feet in the background, the occasional clap or holler coming from the sides - we were speaking into a camera on a sound stage. It was empty. It felt alien, like there was a lack of energy. What was worse was, I couldn't tell if we'd done well or done terribly because there were no boos or claps. There was just silence - no feedback. I imagine that if the man on the stage hadn't had a live audience, he wouldn't have felt nearly as comfortable as he did. And still, I'm guessing he doesn't even realize that there were more crowds clapping for him far off in the distance.
There's another side to clapping though - it's for the audience. In theater, the curtain call is really important because it allows the audience to give thanks to the performer. It's a two-way street. We get to show how much we liked something, and the performer gets that ego-shining praise. We all win. We all feel good about ourselves.
So what happens when the performer doesn't get the benefit of the applause?
Despite the speaker not being able to hear the applause (and, thus, it not really mattering), the audience still clapped because it was a natural response. We clap when speakers are done. Whether they are there or not. We feel good about ourselves, somehow engaged in the process of the performance, it reminds us that we're there.
I spent the entire graduation not clapping. I didn't even clap for my friend when she crossed the stage. It was arbitrary anyway. Her knowledge of the clapping, to me, was all that mattered, and since she couldn't know one way or the other, I chose not to. Plus, I'll admit it seemed silly to me to clap at a screen - an object that is part of the performance, but not actively engaged in it. I would have been applauding an inanimate object.
There are organizations out there that will swindle you out of your money. They are charity organizations that thrive on getting small and large donations utilizing a selling point of emotion while only delivering a fraction of your dollar to the people they claim to help.
A person calls, tells you they need money for children with cancer, and you gladly give $100. That $100 is split up so that $5.00 is given to the research, and $95.00 is given to the call center and the company for operating costs. It's criminal.
But I think of it in exactly the same terms as clapping at a screen. Applauding an image that isn't there.
The audience applauding feels incredible about itself because it's doing something good, something that comes naturally. But what they are doing doesn't really matter on the other end. We hide the fact that what we're doing doesn't matter so that we can enjoy and revel in the task of responding and appreciating the performer. If the solicitor told you that almost none of your money would actually go to charity, you wouldn't give any, so it's important that you believe what you're doing is good. That you're being a saint. And that's what the company is selling you - an easy chance to be a saint.
The audience applauding an image is engaged in an automated response that is rendered hollow by the technology we have. It really does not matter whether they clap or not. Not to anyone it should matter to - namely the speaker.
We will have to confront the oddities and ethical questions that technology brings along. We'll also get to note the weird behavior we see when people are faced with technology and don't have a socially normal response to give it (some people clapped, others awkwardly looked around before clapping and some refused to clap altogether). But now, we have to confront the ethical questions about doing the right thing in a meaningful way. It feels great to give money to charity, but if the money isn't being put to use, you're not doing anything meaningfully or actively good. You just think you are.
How many things in your life seem ethical and meaningful until you investigate further? We live in a time now where doing the right thing is becoming easier and easier. You can pick up Ethos Water at Starbuck's and pretend to be helping water conservation in third world countries. You can give your credit card number to someone who calls you and pretend to fund Leukemia research. You can add a facebook application that says you're reducing carbon emissions.
It all feels really good, but in the end, are you just applauding yourself or can the speaker hear you?
I challenge you to be heard.
No comments:
Post a Comment