(no subject)

[olivermoss]

* If people are going to post fake 'amazing northern lights' pictures, get the damn moon phase right. I know if I point out the obvious that people are going to shoot the messenger, so they need to fake better so I don't get as annoyed about it

* The Kendrick - Drake beef has definitely escaped containment and is being referenced in places that I wouldn't expect hip hop stuff to be referenced. I've seen some people jump in on referencing it like it's the latest google trend they need to get in on for engagement reasons. It's tricky, on one hand it's a big enough cultural moment that for me at least I feel having context is good, but I am never ever going to fully grasp it or think that I have.

I am also not going to try to explain it, but if I did I would start with the words 'So, there was this show called Degrassi: The Next Generation...'

Comments

[james]

I see people talking about being able to photograph the northern lights with their phones even if they can't see it with their eyes and I'm like...you know how new cellphones will fake a picture of the moon and replace it with whatever real picture you're trying to take of the moon? Yeah, that. (I am just cynical about cellphones, I am not doubting the science behind visible and invisible light, because my car's backup camera sees things in the dark I cannot see.)

[olivermoss]

it's good to be cynical about cell phones. I have many rants on the topic.

I could only see silvery streaks, but my main camera could see this:


It can only record what is actually there, but that was with a massive bright prime that can take in tons more light than a cell phone.

Some of the 'zomg I got a picture of the aurora at this iconic spot' stuff I am seeing is just fully BS.

[mistressofmuses]

The fake aurora pictures... the bane of my social media scrolling for the last week...

The Kendrick - Drake beef was EVERYWHERE all of a sudden. Tumblr, local news outlets, coworker gossip.

Honestly... a great way to start the explanation. I feel like not enough people really remember Drake on Degrassi, even if they know about it.

[olivermoss]

Those pictures of Vista Point with no cars and no people around it during the lights? Yeah, those are composites at best. Some of the other pictures are worse offenders, but I have a long running hatred with people who present the Gorge as this amazing thing right near Portland that no one goes to because us locals don't see how amazing it is.

It isn't even a top ten mis-step, but name dropping Milly Bobbie Brown tapped in the tumblr crowd who went 'wait, that asshole? someone read us in on this!' A lot of people who didn't pay attention until he reminded people of that are now invested. And like, people who don't typically listen to hip hop is a core part of Drake's audience? like... wtf?

Kid from Degrassi is escalating beef with someone from Compton is just hilarious to me.

[mistressofmuses]

Oof, that is VERY annoying.

There are a few areas like that around here, too. Hanging Lake is a really popular spot that wound up horribly damaged by people trying to get the perfect instagram shot (climbing out onto fragile branches and utterly destroying them and such, plus an obscene amount of trash.) It's definitely beautiful, but after about ten thousand articles and influencers declaring it an "undiscovered gem" that somehow just nobody local has ever bothered to visit... they started a reservation system because it was SO crowded and was being damaged SO badly. But the "it's like a magical, untouched spot out in the middle of nowhere that no one ever visits" image persists due to creative photo editing.

Yeah, I feel like there were several accidental hornet-nest-pokes during the whole thing. It definitely got a lot of attention from outside the expected audience!

Lmao, that really is the BEST way to describe the situation!

[olivermoss]

Yup, that is absolutely what's happened to the Gorge. The combination of the reservation system for the most popular thing to do in our state, see Multnomah Falls, plus the unpredictable traffic on old route 30 has created a terrible situation. I miss being able to just take a nice drive through there.

Vista House was a shitshow during the storms. The pictures I've seen are bull shit.

I hate it when people make a living off of lying to people. Vacations cost money, yo. People only have so much free time. Sucks to see it wasted.

[mistressofmuses]

I know the reservation thing is largely a needed solution to the problems of crowding and the damage that comes with it, but there is a deep part of me that balks very strongly at having to reserve a timeslot to See A Nature.
Lots of Colorado feels the same to me: I miss just being able to go out for a drive and stop somewhere that looked interesting. Now it's... very hard to do that.

Ugh, exactly! I loathe how much nature stuff like that IS so misrepresented. And sure, I try to avoid getting too many randos in my pictures if I can. But that's different than deliberately editing your pictures *and* your surrounding narrative to pretend that this is ~untouched wilderness~ or whatnot. People wind up with really unfair expectations, through no real fault of their own.

[olivermoss]

The gorge has similar usage patterns to some National Parks, so a lot could be solved by disallowing cars except for the few residents. Actually, studies are highly comparative areas show that would fix crowding, reduce emissions, create local jobs, etc.

Yeah, I also avoid people and I'll edit out my own shadow, but that is also an expected level of editing. But, that is night and day between the stuff the content that people seem to make a career off of making. Also, so much comes down to the framing, people claiming that images takes in 4 Am pre-dawn light and with the exposure turned up is 'just dropped in over lunch'

[mistressofmuses]

There are a lot of solutions out there... there are just so few people who want to actually implement them, or deal with the unpopular sides of those solutions.

There's definitely a big difference between those expected levels of editing and just straight up... lying. I really dislike the way those lines are blurring more and more, with cell phones advertising more and more extreme editing capabilities. (Which may actually look like shit, but definitely try to make it clear that it's totally normal to make it look like you jumped twice as high as you did, or that the sky was cloudless blue for your whole vacation, or that you were the only ones in front of the monument...)
But that's very much the case: it's the framing even more than the images themselves in a lot of cases. It's the posts that talk about the place being untouched or undiscovered gems, or like you say, images tweaked to LOOK like they're taken in broad afternoon but really required hiking out in the dark.