I doubt Team Stool Standing will ever become an Olympic event, but you never know. The world keeps getting weirder each day so I'm almost ready for just about anything. Eventually we all have to step outside our comfort zone.
When you're a caregiver for an elderly person you spend a lot of time worrying about them. And when they get sick with a bad cold you worry even more. And then when you see them coughing and sneezing and touching everything in sight you start to worry about yourself. You know there's no hope, you're going to get sick. And so that is how my life has played out lately. Tissues sticking out of my nostrils, mouth breathing, and eyes that wouldn't stop itching. Fortunately it has now mostly passed, but the downtime did give me time to spend wandering around online looking at vintage snapshots that I would never buy.
I've talked about my theory in the past that Kodak cameras set women free to express themselves in ways they'd never before been able to do. Being silly and having fun with no concern about what society thought was acceptable and often shows up in old snapshots. There were good genuine laughs to be had and shared. Today making pouty faces and taking selfies are the norm. Appearing self-absorbed seems to be a goal. So I wonder about the future poor soul fifty years from now wanting to collect "vintage" snapshots and faced with one selfie after another. I leave that worry to the future. Of course, a good portion of those photos will only be saved as digital files so there's a good possibility that many of them won't survive. Imagine a world free of Kardashian photos. Makes me smile.
But there is one thing I did notice the past few weeks which is that if you go in search of vintage photos you'll find the majority of them feature woman as the subject. I don't know why I never noticed this before. Shots of men are most often in uniforms or business suits. Occasionally you find them in casual clothes having a good laugh; of course the sellers immediately label them "gay" in hopes of taping into that market when they're actually just buddies having fun. Was it the actual fear that taking photos of playing around as friends would label them as homosexual so they stayed away from it? Women always interact differently than men so for them being both physically and emotionally close comes through as just girls being girls, no sexual connotation given.
So tell me what you think. Have women historically been the subject of snapshots more than men? I think in the future it will even out since men are just inclined to take selfies as women. And just think of all the genital shots in the future for all those unfortunate collectors. Perhaps they should be called taking a snapcrotch.
And now that I've read this back I think maybe I kept those tissues stuffed in my runny nose a bit too long and starved my brain of some necessary oxygen. But I'm still sticking with my theory. Women had more fun in front of cameras than men thanks to Kodak Brownies.
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