The Camcorder

Whilst starting the piece, "The Videotape" by Don DeLilo in class, it reminded me of something in my own life: a certain JVC Everio camcorder (for reference, it looks like this). Similar to the Video Kid's innocence in recording everything she saw, my camcorder, no matter the owner, records many aspects of my life.

JVC Everio camcorder

Ever since a very young age to about five years old, my life had been captured by this particular camcorder. Now looking back on these videos, I feel a sort of fascination with a time that I can't remember--I'm essentially a stranger to myself. I had no thoughts about the environment when the videos were recorded because I was not sentient at the time, and as a result, I am fixed on the view that videos of a certain term explain everything about that term. By this, I mean that if I saw a video of myself dancing, I would assume that everything during that era was joyous, making me take on a one-dimensional perspective. 

I specifically remember watching a video of my family at a birthday party, and I turned to my mother to say "Ah, these were the good old days." Of course, I was saying this out of jest, but how could I say these were the good old days without even knowing this period of my life? Technically, I was there in the video, having fun, but I could never be fully aware of the possible turmoil that occurred before or after the recording's duration. After all, how could I know if I did not have an otherworldly memory?

After years of disuse in my parents' drawer, I relocated my old camcorder and claimed it as my own. After charging it and finding a new SD card, I started to take my own videos of my teenage life, and I intend to continue for a long time. Interestingly enough, the videos I have recently taken are similar to my older videos, in that I adopt the same one-dimensional view. Maybe, rather than being the Video Kid, I am the person obsessed with the Video Kid's work, as he singled in on the shooting instead of the Video Kid's identity, and I am focused on a singular moment to define a whole stretch of time.

She is smiling, but she has spent her entire day doing homework, so how happy could she be?