How We View the Past
Вставка
- Опубліковано 28 кві 2021
- A really good Vsauce video on a similar topic: • Illusions of Time
The photo restoration Github: time-travel-rephotography.git...
The Luo paper: arxiv.org/abs/2012.12261
Butser Ancient Farm: www.butserancientfarm.co.uk/
Florence Pannel: • Victorian women | Life...
____
The Paperwaits: / @thepaperwaits
(They can also be found on Spotify under that name)
Josh Liesicke's Redbubble: www.redbubble.com/people/sinc...
My grandmother, who was born in 1894 and lived to be 97, told me about meeting her own great-grandmother, who was born in 1798 and died in 1902 at the age of 104 ("She saw the light of three centuries," my grandmother liked to say). It utterly amazes me that I personally knew someone who remembered a person born in the 1790s. When I kissed my grandmother's cheek, it was the same cheek that received a kiss from that person from the 1790s. For me, this really helped put time in perspective.
This very much reminds me of the saying "America is only three people old". By that logic my home country, New Zealand (or at least the nation-state called "New Zealand") is potentially only 2 people old (Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, so 182 years), which kinda blows my mind. Someone in NZ alive right now who was born in about 1930ish (so about 90 years old) is likely to have met and maybe even known someone (a great-grandparent or someone) who may very well have been alive when the Treaty was signed in 1840. Crazy stuff.
me great gran fuark 1895-1997 beat that
And then consider that all the cells of that cheek would have been replaced many, many times. So the cheek is not the same but the person is...
This is such a fascinating story! "The light of three centuries"--your grandmothers were long-lived and poets!
@@jmckenzie962 I'm also a New Zealander and saw this on Reddit a while ago. I liked it so much I saved it... "Dame Whina Cooper lived from 1895 until 1994, walking at the head of the Maori Land March in 1975. Her father, Heremia Te Wake (1830-1918), as the son of a tribal chief in the Far North of NZ, could have witnessed the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. At one point, Whina's father attempted to marry her to Tureiti Te Heuheu Tukino V, a Maori tribal leader born in 1865 and the son of paramount chief, Horonuku, born 1821 (although she refused). She likely grew up surrounded by people who had met or been familiar with Eruera Maihi Patuone, another prominent and venerable tribal chief in the Far North, who lived from 1764 until 1872, one of the first Maori to have contact with Europeans along with his father Tapua (born 1730) when Captain Cook landed in 1769, and who lived to see the Pakeha become the majority of the New Zealand population. Tapua was himself a great-great-grandson of Rahiri (born between 1475 and 1530), the founder of the Ngapuhi Iwi, the largest of any Maori tribe today."
“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”
" - Brian Eno
I have seen low-poly 3D animations by an artist called "yougotta", where they deliberately added slight jiggling to the vetex positions. This simulates the similar effect in 90s 3D games which was accidental, caused by the low precision of the trigonometric functions they had for rendering 3D in real-time (the difference between calculated and actual position of vertices was effectively random, from a human point of view)
Living in Spain as a 13yo kid in 2001 I sometimes took a four-hour bus journey from Madrid to a country village in Extremadura and on one occasion sat next to a man in his eighties who for some reason started talking about the Civil War (1936-1939) which began when he was 17yo (the age he had estimated me to be) and spent the entire journey telling stories and anecdotes. The fact that I knew more about it than he expected from a foreign child (a Belgian of Lebanese grandparents who had lived in the USA for long) also motivated him to keep talking. I enjoyed every minute of it and wish it could have been recorded because now, barely twenty years later, there is no-one left who was an adult during that war.
I'm glad you had that experience! Perhaps when you're the age he was, you can relay his stories (or as many of them as you can remember) to another teenager :)
I always love talking to older people wherever I go. In the 'concrete jungle' of Singapore once I sat next to an old man on a bench for a break outside a busy tube station in some kind of business district.
We got talking. He'd grown up nearby. When he was a child it was still jungle, no skyscrapers. He pointed to the tube building and told me there used to be a tree at the same spot that he played on growing up.
I am from Spain so you may understand the topic of the Civil War is quite important for me, and your statement of "there is no-one left who was an adult during that war" has just left me staring the wall for seconds. I had to take the calculator to make it settle in my brain. And this has made me realise how much the country is changing without us even realising, when we are also aging, slowly but surely. I guarantee I will have your words in my mind for the next weeks :)
my grandfather was on the artic convoy rout in the second world war. I've always kind of regretted the fact I never thought to ask him what was like because years after he died I found out from a TV documentary that that was actually a really intense, and very unpleasant, theater of the war
@@metabolicsalamanca It goes very fast indeed. In my first job I had colleagues who went to school during the later Franco years and were about 10-12 when he died and the Transición started. It was nothing special to me as I had had many teachers of the same generation. But by the end of this decade, they will all be retired and no young worker or student will have a colleague or teacher who remembers that period. Today's teens will hear stories about Spain's entry into the EEC and NATO in their first job, but nothing older than that.
I was born in 1963. I remember that in 1970 (when I was 7) the 1920s, which some people in my grandparents' generation would still talk about quite actively, seemed like a different era entirely. I recently realized that 1970, which I could talk about in much the same way, is as long ago now as 1920 was then. Trying to remember and understand for young people today, 1970 seems like a different era (and almost irrelevant), just as 1920 did to me ... it's quite a challenge.
Exact same phenomenon, only for me it was first about the 30's/'40's which seemed like another world from the 50's/60's I knew. Exacerbated by the b/w and color photography divide, and the great watershed of WW2 into pre- and post-war periods. Later I realized that pre- and post- WW1 upheaval was probably even greater especially for Europeans.
Paul, you're so old.
I (b. 1964) think we must have had the same misconceptions about the past as youngsters do now about the 1970s. Or maybe less so?
Perhaps we need new lyrics to that Clive Dunn song Grandad (reminiscing about newfangled things).
@@livmarlin4259, and YOU are getting older, and older. Get used to it.
@@EmilyTienne Honey, i'm still young. 😎
I love this channel because Simon's content seems so unashamedly thoughtful.
Exactly. This is an extraordinary video about personal experience and history.
@Creepy Lobster whats wrong with you?
@Creepy Lobster If he does,he does. Most people arent normal,anyway.
I was reading Beowulf at the time when youtube recommend me his baldric speaking old english interview.
@Creepy Lobster Seems pretty unlikely given his excellent communication skills, demonstration of empathy and the ability to stimulate empathy in others.
Still sounds odd to me to hear an adult voice claim to be 'born in the late 90s' - you are the same age as my coat!
He's around the same age as me, which reminds of how old I really am.
im also born in the late nineties and im the same age as most of my clothes too - i live in my mom's hand-me-downs from when she was my age. it's weird to know that my life, which seems long to me, hasn't been long enough to destroy a jacket, or a pair of snow boots, or a bicycle.
@@trevlikely6012 There's something to be said for classic clothes as against throwaway fashion. At least you are wearing your mum's clothes and not your dad's!
I am much older than all of you - that have mentioned your ages lol. I've always had a strange sensation that no one was born, or could be born after the year that I was born. Then to see young adults that were born in the '90s. My Mom used to tell of looking in a glass of a store and wondering who that old person was that was looking back at her. Cliche I know... but describing a real phenomenon. I think it's just linear time and how we experience it.
I was born in 2001 and I am 20.
When I asked my dad, who was born in 1925, what it was like in the 20s and 30s, he said "People walked really quickly, like this." He then proceeded to scamper around like a character in a silent film. Which was all the funnier because he was about 70 at the time.
that is so cute and funny . what a wholesome man . I wonder if that's true?
its true that films from the 20s and 30s were faster because their framerate was lower than ours. i like to think perhaps people are slower now and not in as much of a rush to get somewhere, though i know it's not true.
This is the level of dad joke to which I aspire
I like Scott's thoughts a great deal. But ... I think he is underestimating another aspect of photographs of "the moment". As you get older, you realize more and more how incomplete your own memories are. Photographs turn out, somewhat like music, to be extraordinarily good "stimulators" of memory, even if the memory is not even remotely guaranteed to be accurate. So when we're "trying to own" a moment such as the glorious sunset, I think that in the long run it is less about exclusive ownership, the way we buy art for example. It is more about trying to ensure that you have some artifact that will stimulate and maintain your own (imperfect) memory of that moment, because those moments become more and more valuable to us as we age.
This is something that, as a 30 year old, Ive realized recently that I didnt really take all that many photos over the course of the last 15 years of my life. I get these intimations sometimes that Ive forgotten certain things about periods of my life, or my memory about those periods have changed in certains ways that I know would be different if I had taken pictures then. I think I'd be able to remember those times and those people who arent a part of my life any more more clearly if I had, and it makes me incredibly sad, that I know Im forgetting things about the people I loved.
We have a generation (or two) of people who've never wrapped a cord around their finger when talking on the phone…
Or slammed said phone in anger when hanging up! Shit,I still remember the clicks of a rotary phone.
nah we go a home-phone an my phones always dead sooooooo
*twirl twirl grr slam slam?*
When was the last time you heard the clicking sound of a rotary-dial phone? Or, for that matter, the screeching of a dial-up modem connecting you to the internet at 9600bps? Some things are absolutely gone, but at least with sounds we can re-live them through recordings.
Granted, I still have a rotary phone; it's presently in the closet, but it's been useful for the landline whenever the power went out.
My mom insisted on having one till she passed last summer (almost 100). On another note, Yes, John G, slamming that phone down was its special kind of satisfying.
I did my history dissertation in Venice. I found an extremely rare book of Renaissance cosmology, and spent a full week reading it. Since I was very isolated, I became thoroughly immersed in it. Eventually, it seemed like the author was standing right behind my shoulder--that I could almost have talked to him. To be a good historian, you have to immerse yourself in the culture of the period you are studying--especially its literature--because there is a certain holographic quality to the world-view of every time and place. I got so deep into 15th century Italy, that at one point I said, "There must have been a book written at this time that had a title something like this." A few months later, I found a book with almost the same title. You get to where you know how people were thinking, and can almost enter into the discussions and thought-processes of the time..
Absolutely fascinating! Do you remember the title of the book on cosmology, by chance?
Wow. I get it because I am an intuitive myself, and you are awesome !
Have you seen the movie MASTER AND COMMANDER ? It is designed to be an immersive experience dropping you into a past era, not a modern type face to be seen, and is a masterpiece visually and culturally. Not so sure about the speech -- have to ask Simon . .
That sounds like a fantastic experience! A really comprehensive knowledge of a particular place and period is bound to trigger some sort of mental 'tuning in' process. Hopefully the media we produce can provide future historians with a means of doing the same!
Wow, this is an excellent endorsement and validation of my own experience writing as a 16th century character, which I put in a previous comment.
@@kobaltapollodorus8922 The book was Nova de universis philosophia by Francesco Patrizi.
I’ve always been interested in historical perceptions of the past and future. So, for example, how someone in 1700 would feel or think about 1300 and 2000. A weird thought is that people then knew they were in that year, I find it uncanny to hear or see people referring to their own dates and times as the present. For instance, a letter dated to 1707 or something. Also, I once saw a documentary about historical astronomy and they showed an astronomer’s working out of Haley’s comet and the future flybys of earth. And the date they gave was 2004. And it was so weird seeing a man from the 18th century write down ‘2004’. But of course, they knew they were in 1780 or what have you, so they clearly comprehended that 2004 was a real future date. The whole idea fascinates me.
I see what you mean. I wonder, when writing down that future date, what kind of images it conjured in their minds.
@@zanizone3617 there's a series of postcards from the Victorian era depicting what they thought the future would look like. There was a very strange mixture of modern ideas combined with contemporary implementation. One example I remember was of someone in a flying car, a very futuristic concept for the time, yet the driver was wearing a Victorian style suit and the car had an oil lamp in place of headlights
You might be interested in the 1733 book Memoirs of the Twentieth Century, a very early speculative future history that pretty much does what it says on the tin - it's an incredibly strange feeling reading the words of an 18th century author casually talking about the year 1997, and presenting it as the present date no less
Wait until 2038, 15 years from now.
I was born in 1954, so as a young person I knew some people born in the 1890’s. I asked them the most penetrating questions I could about their early life and times. Because I was intensely curious about “what was it like,” for example in the 1920’s, it struck me that they seemed quite apathetic about their own pasts. Occasionally they even seemed annoyed at my interrogations. Of course I must have bored them terribly. But I haven’t observed the events of my own life as a historian nor as a poet so I’d have little to share about it with an interrogator. I could work up a historical or poetic description, but it would already be at one remove for me and then another for the recipient. This would be true even if I tried to preserve an experience immediately. We just can’t know “what it was like.”
I had a similar experience when talking to my Grandmother (born in the '30s). She is really hesitant to say much about her childhood and how the world has changed, not quite getting angry but I can tell she doesn't want to talk about it.
Born in the 50s. You have to remember our grandparents etc lived through Hell. Many people never delt with the pain, you just moved on.
@@Bildgesmythe yes - I was thinking about that today - in particular, so many early deaths (WW1, WW2, childbirth, TB and so on); and the drudgery of a lot of the work that is no longer needed because we have eg: washing machines
Crowhill i too was born in 1954 i dont know your country but it seems like my childhood is being repeated by the events of todays world i was thinking to about the ways that earlier generations experiences have shaped my world view its nice swhen u age youve got three worlds to fall back onto the past present furture but we are really childre
En of the ages we are born into
I was lucky that my grandmother, born in the 1880's, would tell me about her childhood, where poverty played a big role. But she did not talk about her young adulthood when she went through the big earthquake and fires in San Francisco and the disorganization still long after the events and her first child died. Nor after that (many adult travails, but none related to the wars). My mother, born early 20's,was the one to talk about the Depression era and the 40's. I'm hoping to share the 50's and 60's with my grandchildren, but it doesn't seem like I have anything to compare (moon landing? I glanced over for a few seconds, but figured there'd soon be many more - we didn't stop after one transatlantic flight, did we?) Although, actually, all of those family stories were 'family stories' about what happened to the people and how they felt about it. The big road accident involved a horse and a wagon because there simply weren't any cars yet. Her house didn't burn but was requisitioned (she did write about sharing with all those strangers, but I only saw her account years after her death).
The man from the 1970s Candid Camera programme who said "I should" where almost everyone today says "I would" reminded of another, more complete, linguistic change I have lived through. When my mother, born in 1910, was asking me or any other person she was speaking to to make a prediction of some sort, she would say, "Shall you ...." - for instance, "Shall you be back in time for tea, luv?". If I were to hear this usage today, I would (should?) be startled and probably overcome by nostalgia. Great video!
I had an impulse to disagree with you, but think you’re probably right. I still use it regularly (and I’m only in my mid 30s) to ask if someone would like me to do something, “Shall I make us a cup of tea?”. “Shall I meet you by the steps?” I also still say, “Shall we?” as a short hand to pack up, or to move on, or to go between two places, plus longer variations. “Shall we say 10? I’m a bit busy at 9.” But I don’t think I have ever said or heard “Shall YOU..?” It would sound quite strange!!
@@jimmahgee Yes, "shall you?" does sound a bit strange. I think this second person usage lived was more common in the north of England than elsewhere. I last heard it used by a Yorkshire man many years ago. My mother systematically differentiated between "Will you..." (a request, not a question), eg, "WIll you open the window for me" and "Shall you ...? (a question ), eg, "Shall you be going to London?"
i try my absolute hardest to use words like should, ought and may. they have meanings that are different. born in 1992
@@jimmahgee It's interesting that here in the U.S., about the only situation in which this very real distinction has been preserved is in legal, especially contractual, language. It's still very murky, but unsurprisingly (when considering the subjunctive forms would and should) shall involves obligation, where will is more factual. "Shall I make us a cup of tea?" implies that I'm asking you to oblige me; it's not written in stone. "Will I make us a cup of tea?" is a request for a prediction of the future.
My Auntie Nellie, born about 1910, used "shall" in that way.
My father was born in 1905. I said to him "It must have been incredible to live through all these changes." He replied, "Things haven't changed that much. The biggest change is TV, because it destroyed community. Before TV, people hung out on their stoops and socialized with their neighbors."
yes and the church is done for with all us atheists too. we need a new "church" for our communities to have weekly gatherings without the focus on god but rather on each other. and the drinking culture of pubs is out too, not just because of covid but because people rather be sober. cafe coffee shops were taking their spot though, maybe that can recover.
And after that, the internet. There's nothing to stay home for without the internet and TV
For who don't follow much news, read History, Sociology or see old movies/pictures, transformations aren't perceived. My mother once said "it's a year as another". But about certain things I perceive change opinion
the people who say this are the first ppl to call the police when you try it. No offense to your dad
people still do that though?
Gen Xer here. I write histories that mostly cover the 1920s to 1950s and I've been contemplating much the same thing. I looked at how radically the world changed from 1925 to 1955 and wondered how people dealt with it. Then I realised that it's also 30 years since I was at university and somehow (to me) the world doesn't seem to have changed that much. But of course it's probably changed even more. The difference is that when one lives through major changes in society, they are small and gradual so we don't realise that collectively, over a few decades, they really add up.
For what it's worth, I thought the fall of European Communism would be the biggest change I saw in my life, even though I live in Melbourne. But now I'm equally confident that the biggest change to the world in my lifetime will be the advent of the internet and universal access to all the knowledge in the world (as well as heaps of trash culture).
As the technology develops to automatically transform 1800s and 1900s photography and video into fully colorized high definition media, our cultures will be disrupted in unexpected ways because suddenly there will be adjacent and competing cultures in close psychological proximity, because oldness of the original media and the alienness it forces on the subjects will melt away.
Yep, it seems like that, but it’s probably something even weirder in wide angle
I think it depends on perspective and participation as much as anything else- though yes, objectively many things have changed. For my part I perhaps notice some changes more in a relatively short period of time. I was born in 91, and took a few years moderate seclusion starting about 2009 to roughly 2015 or so. I spent most of my time reading, writing, playing older video games and walking alone at night. I saw few people other than my parents, a few friends and, after I left home, my two housemates who lived more or less as I did. The only other times I went out were to earn money via odd jobs or buyt food- and I didnt interact much. A hell of a lot happened or changed, small and large, without me even being aware of it or caring. When I eventually ducked back into society more actively around 2015, it immediately felt as if the world had gone quite mad in my abscence. Many things were still familiar, but on both superficial and deeper levels it seemed as if a hell of a lot had changed. To this day I still can't wrap my head around many modern trends and fashions- even some patterns of speech in use often seem subtly alien. I'm still more comfortable with the technology and UI's from about ten years ago (which really have changed), and politically though some of my own views havn't really changed since I was twenty I'm apparently somewhat "conservative" now whereas circa 2008 I was more or less "liberal" in the eyes of others. It still seems odd to me how much things are politicised at all these days. Politics was- even for older people- often of little more than tertiary interest to many before the last decade. From my point of view a lot has changed in less than twenty years. I put the differing perception down to the fact that I didnt participate in society much for just long enough for the changes to appear sudden while to you they were so gradual that you didnt notice them happening.
It can be really hard to reconcile those thoughts and to work out how much your own perspective influences how you see these things - I'm glad somebody older than me has had thoughts along the same lines. There's that parallel experience (that I think a lot of us have probably had) of wondering whether the world has always been as hectic as it is now, because as children we're often more sheltered from things like politics.
It's incredible that the fall of communism was so recent that many Eastern European people in their forties (and potentially slightly younger) can clearly remember living in the USSR, which seems to me like an entity that only exists in history textbooks.
@@simonroper9218 Much the same for me. In 1942 my late father was drafted out of university to fight in New Guinea, the last landfall before Australia was invaded. Forgetting what he did in his late teens, I said to my father during the Bosnian War that I couldn't believe that there was a nasty war happening in Europe, that most peaceful and civilised of continents. Naturally he rolled his eyes and said something about the naivete and inexperience of youth.
Clever, this. Certainly can’t get this content anywhere else.
Maybe check out Lindybeige
The older I get, the closer history feels. I've met people born in the late 19th century so it feels closer in time, and that pulls the earlier times closer to me as well.
Yeah right. I remember talking to my Grandad who was born in 1895, a Victorian WW1 veteran, and learning about WW1 never felt like history as I knew someone that was there.
@@contactlight8079 History is what's happening right now as well...
You were born in 1998? I was born in the 1970s and I still struggle with the fact that people born in the 1990s are lucid, talking, adult beings. Even when I first started meeting adults who were born in the 1980s I found it stunning.
same here
Yes it's weriod, that people born when I was at university are now thoughtful adults. Still I reckon those of us born in the 70s can rock being old and middle aged. Boomers seem confused and upset about being old because youth was very defining for them. We kind of lived in the shadow of 60s youth in a way, but I think we can make being middle aged our own.
@@janearmstrong7945 let's hope so!
I'm much younger than you (born in 2005) but I feel the same when I see children born in the 2010s going to elementary school. In my mind anyone born in the 2010s can't be anything but a baby, and yet this year kids born in 2010 will be starting middle school!
My daughter was born in 1997, so she was still very young during the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, yet it boggles her mind that there are high schoolers and young adults now who have no memories at all of a pre-9/11 world. Given how young she was at the time (still in preschool, I think), I'm a little amazed that *she* has any memories that go back so early!
As an Indian who has never been in a conversation with a british individual irl, the random conversation in the end was just as interesting since I've only ever heard or seen you guys on a screen. I find that very interesting.
Don't worry mate, you're not missing too much 😂
I guess that's how people think of Americans overseas from what they watch from our media?
One of the things I'm so grateful to my dad for was he would constantly remind me that people are just people, and always have been. We think of people in the past as being stupid because they didn't know the same things we do now, but there's never been a time when people were less intelligent then they are now (at least, anatomically modern humans), just less well educated. And the same goes for behavior really. People are just people. People really haven't changed.
There's something amazing in imagining that if a child from 30,000 years ago was brought to the modern world, he wouldn't have any trouble developing into a modern adult.
Same as it ever was.
People weren't stupid in ye olden times. They skilled and trained in different things, that have been completely lost to us.
Who knows to wet a scythe? Who knows how to make a scythe by hand? Who knows how to get metal for making a scythe?
The number of people who know how to knit and weave is dwindling in the western world. Those who know to spin a yarn by hand are even scarcer. And don't get me started on those who know to shear sheep usind manual scissors...
@@Galenus1234
Correct
We so called “modern people” are so dumb compared to “oldentimes people” (so called).
I wouldn’t know where to start if I wanted to marry my sister or burn a witch, for example. And that’s just an example. Examples.
If time flowed backwards I bet so-called “history people” (who owing to time flowing the other way would actually be “future people of the future” (so called)) would think we future people (to them we would be past people of history of course) were, uh... you know, cunts.
It’s certainly food for thought!
@@Galenus1234 Yes and also they knew how to write in plain English.
What really strikes me is the difference in perception of memories shared between me and my younger siblings. I’m 21, my sister is 17 and my brother is 15 and even though we’re fairly close in age, there are still some big differences in things like technology in our childhoods. My brother and sister don’t remember ever using a computer with floppy disks or the Windows 95 start up screen, or even VHS tapes that our parents made by recording movies that comes on the TV. I didn’t grow up with the internet at home until I was in secondary school or have a mobile phone until my early to mid teens, and even back then, phones obviously weren’t as smart. And when we have conversations about things we find nostalgic or childhood memories, we all remember things so differently that it really makes me question my own memories. I definitely agree with what you said about the present affecting our perceptions of the past and things bleeding back into our memories. Even though it’s only been 18 months since COVID, I even struggle to really remember sometimes what life was life before COVID, especially things like my university lectures which are now all online. I feel like Zoom has been around forever, even though it’s something I’d never heard of or ever really considered using before the pandemic.
I struggle sometimes to understand our generations obsession with capturing or owning every moment, as your friend said. It’s completely true that that’s what we do; if we see something noteworthy, we take a picture, we don’t do our best to experience it. But even in our memories we’re always capturing snippets of things that happen that aren’t there whole truth. I think about how many days of idleness or insignificant events my brain has just forgotten and thrown away as they’re not important enough to keep. Yes, we tend to only keep photographs of happy memories or weddings, holidays, birthdays etc. But even our own minds are guilty of the same things; we remember our traumas and bad experiences, key events that shape our personalities and our great highs, but how much else do we lose? Are our perceptions of our own lives and histories biased or false? It’s like when you run into someone who knows you from something years ago and recognises you, but you have no idea who they are. What made that day and meeting memorable to them and not to you? How many family dinners have I forgotten, or trips to the beach as a child with my parents? Are my memories real or am I remembering things because I’ve remembered them before, and does that mean my memory is tarnished by the events that occurred when I last remembered that thing? I’ve sometimes realised that things I thought were memories were in fact dreams I had, and that the further back I go, the less reliable my memory is.
So yes, the way we see history is strange and altered by stylistic choices used to portray those periods or technological limitations, and probably quite unreliable, but so are our perceptions of our current world and what we will come to remember of now in 10 or 20 years time.
I’m looking forward to seeing your footage of every day conversations and people from our era if it eventually makes its way to UA-cam and I’m considering doing the same here in Australia. I do believe as we’re becoming an increasingly connected and global society, there are local cultural things that will become lost. Already the way we use language is changing and I’m noticing far more americanisms being used in speech here in Australia, especially by younger generations, as much of the media we consume comes from the US. Eg my 7 year old sister will sometimes say things like diaper and trash even though the people around her say nappy and rubbish.
Sorry for the rambling. It’s after 2 am here and I’ve fallen well down this rabbit hole. As always, great video! Your friends all seem like a very deep thinking bunch and it would be great to see more of them on the channel
Having a eight year old son saying diaper and trash because shamefully he watches to much American youtube really wines me up.
But I feel its to late now and would it of been good for him to be denied youtube, I don't know.
As a child in the early 1980s I always felt annoyed that my household didn't receive MTV on the telly and my peer group at school did because alot of Milton Keynes (England) had cable TV. As we only had three and then four channels does this make me different from my local age group.
My late father was born in 1921 and he didn't talk much about the past. I wish I'd asked him more questions, if he knew how important to me the past was he might of been more for coming.
I find it quite disappointing that my kids have no interest in my life or their fathers life before they were born. Historical documentaries bore them out of their minds and gaming is all they talk about. Am I expecting to much.
At the end. The other thing about taking photos of everything we see these days is that I never watch those photos. I rather re-watch my mums old photo albums than watching the thousands of digital photos I have. When you have a surplus of something it gets less valuable.
I cherish photos. The more recent/familiar ones can seem boring because there's not much to compare. But what a difference time can make. I'm custodian of family pics going back to 1920s. I wonder if we'll be able to find the digital photos of today in decades to come.
@@alanwyatt I think most digital photos will be lost on old hard drives and computers that are thrown away.
I visited my local cemetery the other day and got thinking about this! Some of the headstones are pretty old, dating back to the late 1800s. Trying to get my mind off of work, I got caught up thinking about their daily stressors, what their occupations may have been, and what their average day might have looked like. I even wrote a little poem about it. “Like the birds, we sing the same song. The knell too knows but one.”
"So we go inside and we gravely read the stones
All those people, all those lives
Where are they now?
With loves, and hates
And passions just like mine
They were born
And then they lived
And then they died
It seems so unfair
I want to cry"
- The Smiths, Cemetery Gates
A major change in the language (at least in the USA) that I have witnessed happen recently is that "No Problem" has almost completely replaced "You're Welcome" as a response to thank you.
Born at the turn of the millennium. I still use "you're welcome" to people I don't know or when I want to be a little formal. "No problem" has a casual feel to it and might be appropriate for most situations. Personally, I feel like the desire to even be "formal" has died down a lot. Nowadays it's all about being casual with people and creating a comfortable atmosphere, rather than trying to dress up and impress the crowd. There's a trend to speak to people like you'd speak to your friends (I don't doubt it was any different in things like bars and pubs in the past, but at least when meeting a stranger on the street you would want to be a little more careful in your words).
In terms of linguistic change there's also been all the slang that gets propagated by the internet. Things like "mood (that's so relatable!)", "bet (great, thanks / alright / gotcha)" "lit (awesome, amazing / sounds good / or (of a party) turnt up)" "cap (I lied) / no cap (I'm serious)" I had never heard until around 2016. Even something like "aight" (cool / sounds good) I wouldn't have used until I came across it on the internet (I would have said "alright" with the L).
I grew up with computers and cellular phones, but it wasn't until 2009 that I first started interacting with people on the internet. So in essence, until that time, I was speaking the same language as my parents and my classmates (who were speaking the same language as their parents). I guess because of that, there's what feels like a core tenet of expressions that are common to me, my parents, and people I meet, that doesn't really seem to change, and on top of that there is a lot of slang that no sooner springs forth than it dies down.
Yes! I do not like this trend.
“You’re welcome” is now often used in a sardonic without the other person saying“thank you” as a way of saying, “You should be thanking me”
I dislike "no problem" because it sounds as if it took any effort to do the thing the person is being thanked for he might not have bothered or gone to the trouble, so in a way it negates the thanking. "You're welcome" is an acknowledgment of energy expended to the task.
I’ve started using “you’re welcome” instead of “it’s ok” more recently and it’s quite pleasant :-)
The weirdest thing is, going back to the middle ages and hearing two persons having a completely normal conversation.
Even before, imagine seeing people from the Great Migrations or before.
But why should it be weird?
THAT is the question.
@@AllenCrawford3 How'd you find that channel?
Which you can do by watching The Black Adder.
Hugely important video. I started taking photographs in the early 1960s, and 8mm films in 1970. In the late 1980s I stopped taking those 3 minute Kodak movies because after a while, that 3 minutes supplanted my original memory of an event, and while taking it (behind the camera) I was distanced from the 'action'. A key reason that we take those snaps and cine/videos is, as your video eloquently describes, so that we can 'own' that moment, which of course we can't. We're trying to arrest time. However, I'm pleased to have my family photos (that go back to the 1890s), especially those that show people I knew who were still around in the 50s and 60s. To video/photograph our lives or not ? It's an impossible conundrum. Your work, and the work of your friends, is valuable and your insight extraordinary.
I am 60. I have strong recollections of viewing my parents' family album, as a teenager, with my late great aunt Minnie precisely because when we saw a photo of her holding me as a baby she immediately (and fondly) recollected, "this is the time you puked on my cashmere cardigan".
Love the Mandelbrot.
The comment the guy at the end says about capturing the moment whilst in the moment is usually demonstrated at most modern gigs/ concerts, with people now obsessed with filming it on their phones, instead of just watching and enjoying it.
I let myself fall into that trap with one of my favorite bands when I got my first smartphone in 2012... Fortunately, I quickly realized how dumb I had been, basically missing out on being fully present and enjoying the concert in the moment, and resolved never to do that again.
There is a World Science Series lecture on youtube somewhere, where they discuss time. They were mentioning there are no recorded stories of time travel ( a person moving through the past or future in time) in any culture until photography was invented. It is like photography unlocked some ability for people to envision the past and possible future in a different way.
thats so interesting
Simon... I don't know what to say, really. This is so "meta", and it brings back waves of nostalgia about going camping every year with my friends, and we would talk about everything under the sun. And I think about the little scenes in my memory, I was a university student trying to lock into that world. Then I'd walk into an east Texas store and what would pour out of my mouth was so Texas I was forced to realize that no matter what level of "collegial" in-fitting I was hoping for, I was always going to sound like an east Texan. It's so hard to describe, but I understand exactly what you're trying to convey. I am impressed that you are able to put it into words at all.
i am also an east texan :)
As someone with aphantasia (inability to consciously visualise in your mind) I find the progression of video media fascinating. I rely heavily on taking photos to be able to reminisce (at least the visual component of it) since otherwise my memories are all factual.
oh wow, I literally can't imagine how your memory works
@@Ptaku93 I also have aphantasia and it's pretty simple. Instead of having your memory work like watching a movie, it works like reading a book - you don't quite see what you are reading but somewhere, at the back of your head, you "feel" the expirence
It is weird looking at footage from the early 1900s that has been coloured and reworked to a modern framerate. I found myself thinking it was not that old.
Compared with the Pyramids, not that old at all.
I was refering more to my perception of age of the different recording media. It was expanding on the comparisons between HD and super 8 camera footage they were talking about.
I think that I need to apologise up front, if this reply turns out to be a bit vague or ill formed.
Aside: I've saved this video to watch later as I'm definitely going to want to watch it again.
My relationship with a part of my past seems weird to me and there is a physical aspect to it.
I live in a 95 year old house (I know, cradle rubbish by English standards, but definitely not the American norm). It was originally owned by my grandfather who used to rent it to what he called "other people", before I came along fresh out of university and needing a place to live. It happened to be vacant and I rented it from him. Fast forward 40 years. Now I own the house.
Over the last few years of her life, I was my mother's caregiver. Mom was raised in my house and lived in a granny flat behind my place over the last few years of her life. She fell victim to dementia and would reminisce endlessly about living in my place as she was growing up. One of her stories was about how her play friends would come over during the evening and play board games with her. Eventually, as she retold these stories I started showing up in them. In her mind, I became a neighbour boy, Tommy, who lived across the street and around the corner from my place. My grandfather was a block warden during WW2 and during WW2, grandpa, "I", and my German shepherd would patrol the neighbourhood for signs of light leaking through the window shades, during black out drills.
I wasn't always Tommy. Sometimes I was my father, often enough myself, or some 'nice man' whose job was to look after her. Every day was a winding road.
I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to experience memories of my past under dementia. I have a sort of strange feeling that I might / enjoy / the experience, actually. When I asked him to explain what was happening with Mom, her doctor told me that people with dementia "live inside their own skulls." This I believe, ardently.
I think that you or anyone else who reads this can see the point I'm trying to make. I've probably gassed on too long by now, so I thank everyone for their patience, if they've made it this far.
That's interesting, thank you for sharing. What if...having dementia is "just" another way of experiencing "reality". Sure, you'll lose the agreed upon touch with the world and can help yourself less and less, yet imagination is vivid and full of movement. Hm... not sure what I want to convey. Perhaps that functional "reality" in its constraints is useful but also overrated. There's more to life... I hope.. more mystery, more imagination, more amazement, less sobriety. In any case, we as humans have to take care of one another with kindness in any sort of perceived "reality".
@@moonbirchgrove Thank you. Your words really resonate with me.
From my experience with dementia patients in long-term care, they seemed to be in a world between worlds, where there was a difference of perception in the here and now and back then, it all sort of blended together in their minds and completely made sense to them in the same way the dream world your brain constructs makes complete sense to your mind when in the dream state. Part of their brains were aware that their perception was not correct but they didn't know what was incorrect, and so carried on thinking it was 1961 and they were late for school, or whatever the situation was, despite being simultaneously aware that they were in a care facility. My favorite mentor patient Emmitt described it as the way your brain operates when you're waking up but still dreaming, which was a revelation to me and completely changed my approach to memory care patients. I was fortunate enough to have a few patients who had good chunks of time of lucidity who were able to relay their experience in a way I could relate to and understand. Hopefully, this anecdotal information from a few of my mentors will help you to understand what she may have been experiencing and how it altered her perception of reality, and I thank you for sharing your experience with us.
@@azurephoenix9546 Excellent description of dementia from the patient's perspective! It would be grand if everyone working with dementia patients could see it the way you do.
@@azurephoenix9546 Yes. Your post does shape my understanding of Mom's experience. I am a lucid dreamer, not all of the time, but rather often and I think that Emmitt's observation is spot on. BTW, I made no attempt to become a lucid dreamer. Lucid dreams started coming my way a few years ago. I quickly learned to enjoy them.
I think often about how the development of the video recording has forever altered the relationship we have with the past. There is a video on UA-cam of recordings done in the 1920s with elderly Americans about their experiences. People born in 1840 or before who are so clearly just as human as you or I. Speaking, describing their lives. The generations will no longer be lost to time in quite the same way they once were.
Would you remember which channel, perhaps?
ua-cam.com/video/9MZHHBb3rP4/v-deo.html
@@regular-joe ua-cam.com/video/4qGX0XM84Ck/v-deo.html One guy born in 1839 talks about moving to New York city in 1840 and what it looked like when he was a child.
@@patrickpaganini A thousand thank yous for sharing that, what an incredible and priceless gift that film is. A long and healthy life to you, friend.
Simon and friends: what you do is so unusual. Your vids casually speaking anglo-saxon follow the same themes as this vid- bringing the past to life, and it's great stuff,thank you.
Whatever you're doing with the audio... It's perfect. every video
Apart from the squeeky dog toy and someone demolishing an enamel bath with a lump-hammer during the outside interviews :-)
The biggest thing for me was that ww1 in colour. Like I always knew that they were real people and there was horrific deaths but they were always numbers and statistics. Watching that they looked so real and so young. It really put in my head that they're exactly the same as me with their fears and hopes and dreams.
Agree. Also the old British Pathe films from the 1920s and 30s in colour, just showing everyday life.
yeah stuff like that brings it to life. seeing the old black and white stuttering footage detaches you from the reality. when they convert that stuff to 60fps and colour, it becomes real. quite an emotional experience watching that.
This is such a fascinating video for so many reasons!
I was born in 1956. My sons were born in 1984 and 1985. In 1991, they asked me if I was "born in the olden days." Thinking how much had changed between the 50s and the 90s, I had to answer "yes".
I came of age in the 70s. It's very difficult to explain the strange mixture of old, pre-war influenced behaviours and attitudes, and new changes that probably began as rationing ended! But it was just my life. I graduated in 1979 and, looking back, even the content of my geology degree seems so antiquated.
I was born in 1956. In the seventies, I worked in a nursing home, and became friendly with some of the residents, and learned a bit about their early lives. One woman had worked in Washington, DC during WWI, which I found absolutely fascinating. But when I asked her about what it was like, she was very vague. Even the question, has women's clothing changed since then? got a very unsatisfactory, "No, not really." Even then, I knew women's clothing was noticeably different from 1917 to 1977. Since I retired, I've thought about some of the questions I asked those women, and how I would answer them if asked about my early life so long ago.
I'm struck by the world-wide sameness of everything these days. I was born in 1950, and my father was in the military. By the time I was 13 we'd traveled to Hawaii and back, and taken a ship from the States across the Atlantic and around the Mediterranean, stopping a dozen or so times before we disembarked at Alexandria and traveled on to Cairo and then flew to Asmara, where we lived for four years. Each place we visited seemed very distinct and unique. As an adult, I lived in Europe as well as several U.S. states, and in South Korea during the 80s. It seemed that a lot of what I saw in Korea, especially in the large traditional markets in Dongdaemun (for fabrics) and Namdaemun (for jewelry) was already a glimpse into a past that was gone forever.
In the current century, I've traveled to Costa Rica, which seemed very, very like the States, except for needing to speak Spanish in the Western part of the country. I also went to the PRC, where the view from my very Western hotel room was of a 3-story McDonald's. American fast food seemed ubiquitous there, when in the 80s it was quite unusual. People's manner of dressing has also become quite homogenized.
Your story of the experience of history tracks with my perceptions. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Yeah the whole world is becoming homogenised. It makes me sad but I'm sure there's probably positives as well.
The paradox of diverse countries is a homogenous world.
Globalism
A few days ago I day dreamed about a film about a orchestra player who got an announcement that King Henry was to arrive in 2 months, and it was just normal, of course there's practicing and things relating to that, but there are also scenes of him writing a diary and like that. It starts with him looking thru a window and counting chariots comming to the palace
I'm an American living in Germany. It's so funny how many Germans tell me the same story about their first visit to New York City. They always say, "It looks just like in the movies!" My response (in my head) is always the same: well, of course it does, that's where they filmed it.
Except when it is actually Toronto.
I also had this feeling when I went to NY for a visit a couple of years ago.
It was a sense of things, not being quite real - as if being in a dream and being half aware of it.
I know exactly what they’re talking about. Growing up in South London I knew people from many different countries and none of it was ever strange to me until I met an American for the first time, and was like “Wait, they’re real? People actually act like that?” - which is a pretty strong reaction especially since an American is far closer to me culturally than someone from Asia or Africa, yet I interacted with those people every day and found it unremarkable.
I almost wanted to say something like “Hey, say ‘Thanksgiving’!” or some other trope from American media. (Wait, Thanksgiving isn’t a media trope - it’s a real holiday real people celebrate - but that’s how it seemed seeing it so often on screen but never in reality).
I don’t know how an American could comprehend the strange situation they’re in where the rest of the world is foreign to them, yet they are not foreign to the rest of the world, since we all grew up watching them on TV and film, listening to their music, and reading their literature.
I can speak 5 languages. I want to learn old English. I'm cockney I remember when milk was delivered
That
Candid camera guy isn't cockney he's northern xxx
Every time the fact that you were born in the late 90s makes me feel old.
I know, I was born in 1980, and I cant believe someone born in the late 90s and come across as old as he does
@@stevencoardvenice 1978 here. Thoughtful & educated Simon seems like great boyfriend material, and then I realise he's 20 years my junior, lol.
The segment at the beginning was an interesting thought experiment for someone like myself, living in New Zealand. That conversation was likely spoken in a similar accent to my ancestors who migrated from England around that time. It's fascinating to see how, among people of European descent here (and the same goes for any former British colony), a distinct Kiwi dialect has developed and become reasonably homogenous around the country in the span of less than a century.
True of Australia as well right? Accents are fascinating, consider Southern accents in the USA almost certainly these accents developed out of Scots-Irish and English regional dialects as it was these specific groups that first settled in the region, then later the accent was shaped by other groups that settled there including slaves from various African tribes.
I was thinking: "man, these dudes are so wildly arty. they must be working on some indie project" and guess what they actually do have a indie rock band lol.
Anyway, great video as always!
I had the experience of "entering the past" in a small way when I heard a young man in northern Ontario using a turn of phrase that had dropped out of usage decades ago where I live in southern Ontario. For a moment I was transported to my childhood.
Beautiful and unique stuff, you're doing, Simon, You're a scientist, an artist and a philosopher.
When watching fly on the wall documentaries I find it quite easy to connect with what's happening, and I wish someone would make a series shot in the same naturalistic style but set in the past, just following someone around so we can experience a day in their life. A man going to the forum in ancient Rome, or a trader in Byzantium, a boy in Tenochtitlan, a civil servant in Beijing. Infinite possibilities.
Double, if you add in the females ;)
0:37 Reminds me of Goodnight Sweetheart series
I love the atmosphere of your videos. I feel like I am sitting there with you at the porch and participating with you in those deep discussions. Keep it up!
Exactly. I like this channel because it's so unassuming and reminds me of conversations I've had with friends who love languages.
Have you ever seen colorized pictures from the 1910s from Antarctica? They look like they could have been taken today. They have the same kind of surprising feeling that you're talking about.
It's a very interesting discussion, I have an example. I was born in 1968, in 1980 my towns local football team went to Wembley to play in the non league cup final. The whole town practically travelled down, it was a huge event in my childhood, and I have some very clear memories of it, of the feelings, what we sang, the excitement of the football special, the corridor train. The parade afterwards, even though we lost. Granada TV made a half hour documentary, in an odd style where the subjects are just left to talk. And of course its now on UA-cam. Watching it again I was struck by how old fashioned it seemed, partly this is the camera quality, and the style, and the clothes, but it is also the way people behaved, the way they talked, even the way young men perched on the top of advertising hording, (they always did that then to get a better view, they never do now). When was the last time you saw someone playing dominoes on a train, I had lived through it, I remembered it well, and I was an age to remember, but it looked as old fashioned to me as it would to some one 30 years younger. Take a look ua-cam.com/video/Ytye2n1Yot8/v-deo.html
I've done wet plate collodion photography. Was surprised to hear that and daguerrotypes mentioned. These methods came before any kind of flash so requires a lot of natural light to be done. It also takes several minutes and the slightest movement will become a blur on the photo hence why they don't smile.
I wonder how much present-day historians envy future historians who will have unprecedented access to the way we live our lives when WE are history
Edit: on the other hand, we know more about our own time than the future ever could, so I guess we’re even.
Perhaps as recordings become more and more immersive (for example, through VR), the recordings we've produced will seem more and more meagre. Hopefully they're enough for future historians to work with!
@Martin Baldwin-Edwards In terms of the second claim, I was really thinking more in terms of what it's like for us to live our day-to day lives. Musicologists, for example, can uncover tons of evidence from old treatises and instruments about how music was played in the past, and we can seek to emulate that when we play music on replica instruments from the past to try to hear what it sounded like, but only the people who were alive to hear it at the time could ever truly know what it sounded like to them.
I admit I was a bit ambiguous in my use of the word "we". But people (today or in the future) can be ignorant, and have a biased view, of history just as much as they can about current events. And there are historians who seriously study the past just as there are analysts who study the present. Though, I understand that we might need to wait a while before all of the facts can be uncovered before we can properly deliberate on what is going on and where exactly it fits into history, since people hide information from each other when it's in their interest to do so.
@Martin Baldwin-Edwards Historians of the future will definitely have a wealth of information, good and bad, to sift through (should it survive) which will definitely make it more time consuming and 'hard' in that sense but I think you're overlooking something or a few things, really. More people from all walks of life are leaving written/audio/video records of themselves, creating more material. Because of this, the complexity of history will be more obvious and MAYBE historians will make fewer sweeping generalizations. They will also have a lot of information from people from our time period arguing about what is fake or not on a certain topic. They will probably be able to experience the history of our current period closer to the experience of those who lived it than any other historical period in time. People living during our time often don't know what's true or not around them. It's not like we're all currently enlightened and the future historian won't be able to get at the truths that we all knew. The mess and the confusion is an accurate representation of our present. Historians of time periods with fewer records from fewer people may look like they have an easier time of it but they're just taking the limited information they have, whether it's the accurate bits or not, and interpreting as best they can. It's terribly incomplete.
The bigger problem, I think, will be to preserve all this data in a format that can be accessed later. I have data on a 3.5" floppy disk that was inaccessible 5 years after use. In this case, there were still drives around that could read it but they demanded the disk be reformatted which would erase it.
@Martin Baldwin-Edwards I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree but I do have just a couple parting points I want to make. One - written documents of past eras are also full of misunderstandings, propaganda, and outright lies and there were historians then and now who would bend the truth or lie to support their own agenda. People really haven't changed much. Two - I don't know how they're going to determine what is reliable without reading a lot and sifting through it and making judgments. I could be wrong but you seem to be ascribing to an idea of history as just about big events, dates and goings-on at a state level, where I suppose you are suggesting the reliable accounts are made. History is also about how normal people live, digest and react to good and bad information, and navigate living in their world. Gossip, lies, and conspiracy theories produce movements and affect policy and are, basically, making history. To understand our time, historians are going to have to jump into the fray.
Not only was that a great video, but I am now loving The Paperwaits. 👏👏👏
Also love the Simon cameo - way to take a punch, looked real! 👌
Simon. You always deliver quality content and this was no exception. This one especially hit home since I have thought many of the same things myself. Keep up the great work. 👍
There’s something about the way you see the world and the way you think and express ideas that has me so hooked on your videos. They’re so calming and thought provoking - a massive contrast to the slightly manic 60 second clips people are pumping out as part of our new desire for instant information and quick content to cater to short attention spans. A lovely change of pace and production quality. Thank you for creating the content you do.
You always have photographers at weddings, you never have them at funerals.
[This continues a previous comment from me.] 3) People sometimes are consciously aware of living through tectonic shifts in culture. There’s a clip of Bob Hope hosting the Oscars in the 1970s, and he makes some cracks about how permissive the movies are nowadays. Compare, e.g., The Exorcist (a 70s film) to the ‘horror’ films from the 30s, like the old Frankenstein and Dracula films, and you can see the kind of cultural change he was commenting upon. Everyone in the audience that night was keenly aware of having lived through that - the “turbulent” 60s, as it was known even then. 4) I hadn’t heard the phrase “Kodak moment” in a while. At some point it stopped being used. But when was that point, exactly? Bit by bit, small parts of culture are disappearing, fading, falling out of use, becoming obsolete. It’s happening all the time, each and every day. That is how history is formed.
5) The older you get, the closer the past seems - that is, the more you realize that people in the past were just like us; they moved in the same three-dimensional space, felt the same kinds of emotions (more or less), stammered when they talked, etc.
Colorized photo and video are great for giving that weird timewarp sensation.
Exactly, I find it interesting that some people object to colorized photos and film, I love it because it makes the "ghosts" more real to me since most sighted people live the world in color.
What a great video.
I've had small glimpses of many of the ideas in this video, and you've fleshed them out in a really brilliant way.
I fully expect this to garner millions of views.
I absolutely love hearing Scott’s thoughts/perspective of things!! Would love to hear more from him. Love this channel, it’s so thought provoking ❤️
I'm still living in the 1980s and the 1990s. I recommend it to all of you.
Same here, I don't even have a mobile phone!
Yes! It felt so free back then. You just were where you were 100%. And you were with whom you should have been with because no one could find you unless they belonged with you. Sheer freedom. And not everyone was a damn politician. Hopefulness was everywhere. Surely do miss those days
Except I remember the frisbees changing, so 11:00 (timestamp) didn't have me convinced for 1989 (year) in the UK. Or if it was, his 'uncle' was on the cutting edge of frisbee technology and probably had an American direct import or something [but, no, it transpires].
Yes. Give me knobs and dials. As I get older it's really the only way that I can now interact with tech.
I'm still living in the 1970s and late 1960s (also highly recommended). The sense of freedom was wonderful. I lived totally in the present and travelled a lot. Rarely using a camera then I find I don't often look at the few photos I have, it's still all in my head. In the last ten years or so, having been persuaded to take more photos, I have felt that I am recording the present as history for the future rather than being immersed in the moment. Given up on photography.
This is why I meticulously document everything, things we find "mundane" today won't exist tomorrow. I often find references to things considered "mundane" in the past of which no photographs can be found online purely because nobody bothered to document them.
I've been hoping for a long time Simon would cover this topic. Many thanks, you've made my weekend!
I found this channel today and I know this is an older video, but there’s something that you’ve articulated here that’s just beautiful and meditative for me personally at least. Appreciating our daily present as it’s own historical moment with sights and smells and people and language. It’s something I certainly hadn’t really consciously appreciated before watching this video. Thanks for making this!
Really enjoyed this one. Those two guys are great to listen to as well. Keep em' comin'.
The village I live in was settled almost a millennium ago, and there are many places where I enjoy 'going back in time' for the odd moment. I admit to romanticising heavily about the past often, many of the towns and villages around me are, in my opinion, shells of what they once were, ruined by post modernism, overcrowding and anti culture. It's great to employ this form of abstract thinking to appreciate the splendour of many places that are now otherwise undesirable to inhabit.
I subscribed to your channel several months ago and find it endlessly fascinating. As an archaeologist, I’ve often thought about “the past is a foreign country” bit...This is a really excellent presentation! Just wanted to say how much I appreciate your content - keep up the good work. Cheers from Greece!
This channel has become comfort food for me. You find the beauty in the mundane and showcase it. I grew up in England (although live there no longer) to some very traditional parents, and spent much of my childhood surrounded by artifacts and echoes of this curious culture, much of which was disappearing by the early 00s and 10s. The conversation between the bloke in the hat and the bald fella reminded me of the kinds of characters and conversations I was surrounded by as a kid. Totally mundane on the surface, but also a perfect example of the characters the principles of the participants, which are ever so slightly distinct from each other, but both unequivocally British.
Fantastic video, Simon (and friends). As a novice filmmaker I've enjoyed going out filming people and places largely for the pleasure of framing and choosing what to shoot, but just as you point out I often think about how interesting my footage could be in the future, if at least just to me. If you film a building for example which gets knocked down the next year, then bam there you go, it can live on. Similarly if you film a person at a certain age then have them revisit the footage, they can almost reexperience their younger selves. It's all a bit of a bizarre wild ride I suppose haha. Keep up the great content pal.
Well my grandparents all lived through WWII as adults, so it would just be like listening to them but with more youthful voices (initial scenario). I don’t see any of their generation left now, in the doctors waiting room etc, but I used to love listening to them. One thing about their generation was they were very good at conversation. If you got two old boys who knew each other they loooved to talk, knew so many people in common, shared such a community base, and sentences and idioms were, in this area, so much more particular and congenial and less formulaic compared to listening to modern people converse, especially because a lot of people who just “meet” don’t have that much in common with each other anymore.
Just rewatching this video, and I wanted to thank you for mentioning The Paperwaits. I started listening to them after seeing them here the first time I watched this, and I love their music.
Love all your videos. Keep them coming.
I learnt in the 60s and 70s not to take photos, or at least many, when I went on holidays or I went travelling. Instead, I kept a journal with writing and drawings. I found that photographs kind of limited my memories of the journey, whereas the journaling suggested the activity of writing or drawing as much as the written or drawn piece. When I look back on these journals now, my memories are multi-layered. later decided to take a Brownie Box camera ( already a very archaic camera) and one roll of film, given that I could only take 8 photos of my journey. I used this to take special photos of people or interiors, etc. The choosing of the subject also informed the way the photograph works now into the narrative of my memory. I feel a bit sorry for people with mobile phone cameras (a technology I have decided to do without), snapping away like maniacs nowadays, but that is another story.
When I was a kid, the three of us siblings shared a 110mm camera. When we went on holiday, we had a strict turn-taking procedure. So out of the roll of 24 shots, we'd get 8 each, but also it had to go in order. So if you saw something really cool but it wasn't your turn next, you couldn't get a photo of it. It wasn't necessarily the intention of the system, but it really made you really think about the sorts of pictures you were taking and valuing them!
I did the same when I visited Venice. Any worthwhile image of Venice has been done by greater artists - I find I can still vividly recall my visit including sense memories other than visual. For me the cost of film and film developing meant that a two week holiday would have to be captured in at most 24 carefully considered snaps.
I genuinely believe that the pace of change in popular western culture slowed down a lot in the 21st century. I recall the early 90's and watching things from the 80's as a child, it was clear it was a different era, even though it was just 4 or 5 years earlier. I notice that the haircuts that young men considered cool in 2009 are the exact same ones that young people are getting now - whereas you could not have said that over a 12 year span between the 50's and 60's or whatever.
Maybe it was all the cocaine
Or was that the 70's?
I think that the changes in clothing, architecture, music, car designs (the exteriors anyways), have not changed much in the past 25 years, especially compared to the change between 1970 and 1995, or 1945 to 1970.. However the changes in technology have been vast. In 1995 kids were just discovering the internet and many adults were not sure what it even was. There were no portable phones (unless you were rich), no smart phones or even texting, no facebook, youtube, social media, almost zero online dating. In fact digital cameras were very new, so if you took a photo you still had to take the film to a shop to have it developed. The TV's were still CRT's - those giant things that weighed 50 pounds.
@@dariusanderton3760 There have been major technological developments - although on the other hand I and most people I knew had home computers in the early 80s and attempted a bit of coding and swapped games and so on. All the changes from that point have felt to me inevitable and seamless; so I wonder if the major psychological divide in technology begins at the era of home computing devices.
As someone born in early 21st century, the 2010s seem like a different era to me even though I lived through it, so I don’t think it has slowed down. Maybe in things like haircuts, yes; but it still is evolving rapidly in other areas. For example look at memes from the early 2010s, they seem very different and almost alien (at least, from my own subjective perspective)
I'm from a third world (still western) country, born in 2001, and I disagree with this.
Technology is not the only thing that has vastly changed. Clothing and hairstyles changed a lot in the past 10 years, lots of new words and common expressions (in my native language at least), changes in what things are socially accepted and what isn't, etc.
Things kids used to do when I was little are quite different to what little kids do now, mainly because phones and computers changed everything, which existed 10 or 15 years ago, but only a few had access to.
I remember when I could watch something from the 90's or 80's and not realise it was old, because dialy life was almost the same. If I watch the same things now, it looks like another world, because in just a few years I went from having a B&W TV to a newer colour one, to watching HD TV on the internet, even on my phone, and everything started to be based around the internet, and so on.
This might not be the same all around the world, but it's my perspective, as someone who believes change has only started to speed up in many ways, although sure it will get stuck in some others.
The Paperwaits are great. Thanks for that. There's an air of sly enthusiasm when they play that perfectly threads the needle. The videos, especially "The dog has been deleted" and "Happening", have a wonderfully professional "home-made" vibe. It's just damn fun to watch, over and over.
This is the first time I've come across this topic being covered, although it's something I've pondered upon for years whilst watching old footage, whether it be an old clip, film or photo, and have always found it so fascinating!
Btw, I'm really glad you shared your friends' music- I liked what you were playing at the end and I really like what I'm hearing on their channel so far! I'm extra thrilled since I feel like I've already found all the good music that exists from 'the past', and music I love from 'the current', haha, is increasingly hard to find... :D Elliott Smith is one of my favorites, I don't know if you've heard of him or not. I love this type of music so much, it's like, tragically beautiful or something...
It sort of pulls all your scattered pieces back to center, and makes you feel like your 'emotional self' is getting a massage or hug... all the stresses and tensions that go mostly ignored sort of rise to the surface and you can just let them be and just think and feel for a moment- and even though the music might tug at your heart - you can still hold it together... :) It's like a gentle way to detox your soul... Thanks so much, I'm delighted to have such lovely new music to enhance my reality. :)
PS, pleasant surprise seeing you in "Fading Away"... :D The camera loves you. :)
Thanks for your kind comments, I'm sure the others appreciate them as well. I don't think Tom (one of the pals in the video) would mind me saying that he once told me Elliott Smith was one of the few musicians that he liked practically every song from! He introduced me to his music a year or two ago, and I'm glad he did. I think there's a mural to him in LA somewhere.
@@simonroper9218 Thank you too, you've brought so much fascinating content into my experience since I've found your channel, I'm very grateful. :) And yes, Elliott Smith- I can't think of a song I don't love by him! :D I used to live in LA, moved there in 2006- the first place I went was to see the mural... :) It was actually sad, I'd only discovered him in 2004, shortly after he died.
I knew the song Miss Misery for a long time by then, loved it, but never looked into who the artist was. Only did so after I'd heard it randomly after not hearing it for a long while... I listened to so much of his music and was very moved... I was determined to see him concert (I have to be really captivated to go to a concert!), only to find out he'd died less than a year before that. That was super disappointing and sad. All I could do was hope to find every 'version' of every song that I loved the most, since there would never be anything new again. Ah life... :) I think my favorites are Waltz #2 and No Name #5...
Yes, I thought they sounded really good too - surprisingly good!
Absolutely loved this! I am almot 58 and remember looking at my parents’ childhood pictures of the 30’s and 40’s , all in black and white, observing every detail and trying to imagen being there. I was fascinated by our perception of time and the past, although as you say, all we have is the present moment. You’re all so cool! Sending lots of love ❤️
I've always thought about the topic of this video! Thank you so much for going into greater detail and putting a bit of order to my thoughts. I love this!
This is truly fantastic. I'm thankful for what you're putting out there!
I adore your mind! Thank you for providing such food for thought, always.
Honestly, I am rather alienated by many things going on today, that i had started questioning as a teenager.
I absolutely love this video, it's so genuine and speaks to all of us on many different levels.
I loved that your friend mentioned the 'need to take a photo of x y z' (sunset or whatnot) instead of simply being there to actually enjoy it. Because truly, we do not actually enjoy looking at pictures of beautiful things more than actually being there to experience them so now its a matter of fighting that feeling and becoming philosophically convinced of the primacy of the present moment of experiencing beauty over 'capturing it' to 'own it'. bc in that exact way, we lose it.
Such a cool video. Loved the topic & the presentation
I think your experience of first meeting Americans is kinda similar to a time I went to New York and saw some black kids speaking authentic AAVE in the subway, and I realized that I had only really heard AAVE in media, but because of that media's popularity with both me and the friends I had grown up around, I still speak with a lot of distinctly AAVE features, especially around people who are the same age as me, even though I don't really know anybody who speaks it in their daily life.
This echoes a lot of thoughts I’ve had and also has a lot of parallels with an early ‘time travelling’ short story/novel that I can’t remember the name of where the time travelling is effected by the sheer act of living authentically in a Victorian apartment and dressing as a Victorian in every way so one day you open the door and walk out and you’ve travelled back.
Their point was that everything had to be as it would have been then, new and crisp and colourful and bright, not as we see antiques in the modern world, faded and yellowed and old.
The time-travel novel you’re thinking of (whose title and author you can’t remember) is TIME AND AGAIN by Jack Finley.
I was born in 1960, my mother was born in 1930 and my grandmother was born in 1898. I am the youngest grandchild, so I have a pretty vivid view of life from the perspective of these two people (Mom is still here, almost 91 and very lucid) that covers a century. My vocal cadence, accent, and words I use (some are considered archaic, but seem pretty normal to me..) come mainly from these two people. I am often mistaken for a Midwesterner but have lived my entire 61 yrs on the west coast of the US. My grandmother was a flapper in the 20's.. :D Time has a real way of collapsing and expanding. What seems like a long time ago to one person (1970) is a time of close and almost current memories for someone like me. :) Great video.
I’ve been thinking so much about this as of late, so refreshing to hear your thoughts!
Another strange thing about film making is when historical cameras move around in a hand held fashion and aren’t fixed like traditional cameras were. As soon as they move they inhabit the space they’re in and make it so three dimensional. I once saw a video on UA-cam of on the street interviews from 1930 in New York. It was weird seeing people in their everyday environment. There’s also various hand held footage from the 60s and 70s that’s interesting. I like Jimi Hendrix’s music- there’s backstage footage of him playing guitar with friends and it’s strange when the camera moves around the room and then Hendrix, it goes behind him and over his shoulder. It makes him so real and 3D.
Something you might like to compare and contrast with your thesis in this video is how we experience dreaming. Sometimes bits of our dreams relate somewhat to our episodic memories, but the plotlines of our dreams are cut from whole cloth by our brains. They reveal the essence of how we perceive reality, rather than how reality is. Someone once suggested to me that we can gain self knowledge by recounting our dreams while inserting the phrase "part of me" after every noun. I was puzzled at first, but eventually realized that all the "things" in my dream were merely based on my mental constructs, not experiences, so they were, in fact, part of me.
Really interesting video Simon and the bands song was lovely!
Diggin the trim u legend
Very interesting video. A few thoughts. 1) In philosophical aesthetics, there is a debate as to whether photographs should be considered “transparent,” meaning that they give us actual access to the objects they depict. So in looking at a photograph of T. Edison, we are actually seeing the man himself, the actual man in the 19th century, and not just a “representation” of him. 2) Fashion and fads, it seems to me, have a distorting effect on our view of the past. For example, I was recently watching a clip of MTV from 1991, and was struck by how absolutely different *everything* was: the clothes, the style of music, the style of dance, hair, etc. Now I was a young child in 1991, but the whole thing looked very alien and, frankly, very silly to me. It was even funny. However, if I’m reading a work of scholarship from 1991, more often than not I can’t tell that it wasn’t written yesterday. The typical prose style hasn’t changed much at all since then, and (what I will call) the general mode of scholarly discourse hasn’t, either. The lesson of this: our view of the past is colored by the relative durability/endurance/permanence of the things we are happen to be focused on in a particular moment.
This is brilliant... I love the unrushed thoughtful quality!
Fantastic topic. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating. More of this, please. Well done.
How strange, just now I saw one of your videos in my suggested list and I thought it was new, but I realized it was from a year ago, and before I could click it, the notice for this one popped up. 😊 I love this subject, guess I'll be watching this now. 🤗 Time is such a strange thing, almost like the past never happened...
Edit- I loved this video so much- thanks for always managing to redirect my mind towards more lovely thoughts and reminding me that the world is still capable of producing fascinating and thoughtful things... :)
You know, I really do get what Simon was talking about when he met Americans that it was a bit different. I personally am quite an avid language learner, so I am kind of sheltered from other kinds of English than my own even though I am constantly talking to people from all over the world. I went to England once and didn't have many difficulties in understanding the English people, but a ton in understanding the semi-British/semi-foreign accents since here in the US I always hear accents of Chinese, Mexican, Filipino, Ethiopian people etc that are more Americanized. So when i heard the anglicized once it was weird. Then when I watch British films that were made for domestic audiences rather than international audiences, I often find that I understand it about as well as I understand Spanish which is one of my second Languages. It's weird, cuz in America we're not really exposed to very dialectal English from abroad, so for example my mom doesn't even understand words like knackered or pissed. It's just kind of interesting.
Great video Simon. Really thought provoking. Seeing the VHS tape brought back fond memories of my Video Nasty collection.
hm great content! went perfectly with my morning coffee
dont be affraid to put out more of these kind of videos, its very much appreciated.
greetings from the netherlands!
Great Video, thanks to you and your friends!