Spare Me the Narration, Please

Knowing that I’m someone who loves photography and photographs one might think that I also enjoy videos, but I don’t.  I don’t like videos on Facebook.  I don't like them when I'm checking the news.  I don’t like vlogs.  I don’t like listening to a YouTube DIY or product review, (especially when it’s narrated by somebody who sounds like the local motel owner).  I have the attention span of a dog or worse, so I’m not going to plod through anybody’s “slice of life” clip with rapt attention.  If you’re one of the scooter bloggers I follow, I might have noticed that you’ve mentioned the idea of tinkering with video now and then, and I hope and pray that your wonderful blog never turns into a vlog.

I find that a still photograph allows me to enter the scene that’s captured in it in my own mind in a way that a video doesn’t allow me to do.  A video ruins a view of something for me with somebody’s incessant yapping away about what’s being seen and it doesn’t allow me to experience the view in my own way.  The videographer suggests or outright tells me what I should see, rather than allowing me to simply see what he’s showing me.  I find the intrusion of his voice to be obnoxious as if were he yelling out in a church or a library.  Imagine if a visit to a museum came with the artist accompanying you to each of his works and telling you what you should be seeing in his creations.  It would make his works of Art much the less if he failed to communicate what he wanted you to feel in the artworks themselves.

 Enjoy your ride, but please don't narrate it on my account.

Too often a video narrator has diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of ideas.  He finds the need to keep on yammering even if his thoughts aren’t well formed and he ends up seeming to be talking for the sake of talking.  All that unnecessary yakking detracts from the view, rather than adding to it in a good way.  Now add the buzz of a scooter or the roar of a motorcycle in the background of everything that’s being said?  No, thank you!

  

I like to read someone’s thoughts.  To read them; not hear them.  Written thoughts are generally well put together because they’re not usually just spewed out off the cuff, or off the tongue as it were.  They often involve the use of the delete and backspace keys, both of which are used about as often when I’m writing as the space bar.  They’re polished in a way that extemporaneous speech typically isn’t, and they serve a purpose other than simply allowing the narrator to enjoy the sound of his own voice.  I can usually read the printed word a whole lot faster than I can listen to the same words being spoken, especially when the speaker is breaking up his sentences with a bunch of pauses, ums, and ers while he thinks of what’s going to be spoken next.  Most importantly, though, I can process written words more thoroughly when I can allow my brain to soak them up and reread them if necessary.

 No, sir, I'm not going to listen.  I want to read!

So, if you’re a successful blogger, I encourage you for my sake to keep on being one rather than giving posting videos any serious consideration.  Old Yeller here probably isn’t going to give your vids a listen, though admittedly with some degree of regret for what he might be missing.