Video killed the Radio Star
Posted on 28. May, 2010 by admin in Headlines and Opinions
Remember the advent of video shops and Betamax and how VHS took Betamax on, AND out, in a jiffy and how no sooner had that battle been done when DVD took everything else on and… sjoe!
Well, there are some movies that are so brilliant (to me) that I could watch them over and over, but going to the movies to see the same movie over and over just isn’t on. They’d look at you funny the third time you come for the same show. And anyway there is no pause button at the cinema to allow for that odd cup of tea in between. So the video shop fast became one of my best friends – still is. I am on first-name terms with the assistants, I know how many dogs they have, their favourite film genre, and who their child psychologist is – everyone uses the same person, it’s like the age of Dr Spock babies. And, I have moved with the times, I know how to use a DVD player, unlike my parents.
So while we are somewhere down memory lane, let me remind you of when you were young (I mean between the ages of 7 and 22 years). Know how your father always hauled you in to “come and fix this thing so I can watch it”? Remember when they were stumped while you were smoking ciggies (or worse) on the sly at your friend’s in another neighbourhood or were out for the night and they had no clue how to disconnect the video machine from the TV and reconnect the TV cable to the aerial socket or the difference between input and output only so they could get a signal to watch the SABC news? Okay, only some of us do.
Babysitting my six-year-old nephew without whom I had no idea of how to turn on their TV, made me think hard about how frustrating it must have been for the folks sitting at home, fuming because they were not able to watch “their programmes” while I was out gallivanting. And in my desperation I regretted it so intensely as if that would immediately absolve me and by some miracle allow me to turn on the thing that would not go on, no matter what I did. All the possibilities on the control with that illusive button, the various combinations of illusive buttons, the knob on the amp that said Aux, another which said Play, played with my humour. If my parents could have seen me, can you imagine their jubilation? I doubt it. You don’t know them like I do. It would be akin to Bafana Bafana winning the World Cup. And yes, I mean in 2010.
Why is it that these little people have to be so clever with the newest gadgets? Isn’t it just amazing that they and technology have such an affinity, they almost seem to know each other by osmosis? And the more they mutate into something complicated, the more they gel. I still do not have my Nokia under control with all its fancy features (call mailbox, PTT, IM, Quick Office – a misnomer if you ask me – and a myriad more). I bet you that the single-digit-year-olds would have it down pat in a minute. I watched in awe as my friend’s nine-year-old nephew did something to my phone with his phone and next thing UB40’s Red, Red Wine was my new ringtone. Kids and technology. We could exchange anecdotes and debate about whose child’s cleverer for hours, but, if that is the measure of clever, many of you and I don’t fit the bill.
A nine-year-old outclassing you with his techno-sus is less humiliation than a six-year-old turning on the TV so you can watch:
“Don’t you know how to do this?” met with my studied silence. “Why don’t you know how to do this?” met with more of the same. A really smug smile from a six-year-old and you know you’re done for. I am sure we were not like that with our parents. I have no clue, but I will pretend to be deaf and live with the certainty of a looming embarrassment – one fine day when we are all sitting in the garden, having a braai, that six-year-old will inform the company of my technological challenges, because somehow, they always manage to remember that wretched moment when there is an audience to share it with.
