Recently, MKBHD (Marques Brownlee) interviewed Mark Zuckerberg on YouTube.
YouTube's Creator of the Decade and the man who unleashed social media on the world had a chat.
And what was the conversation about?
What's next in tech. Obviously.
The striking point? Both of them spoke about creating reality through technology.
Zuckerberg thought that while screens have vastly improved over the years, what's missing is presence.
So, if you're talking to someone else, you had to feel that they were right next to you.
VR and AR are where most investments are being made.
And to do what?
Make the artificial look real.
We'll use technology to get the reality we want
What do we do with the reality we already have?
The conversation throughout was about making technology create artificial objects and make them look real.
Virtual and augmented reality.
But reality cannot be packaged into neat little units
Watching a real sunrise on a beach
Getting drenched in real rain.
Having real conversations face to face.
Why does technology have to give us another version of real?
When all we need is to preserve and be grateful for what we already have.
Does this make any sense to you?
Public speaking in a pandemic
There is no lectern or stage to walk up to
Or the murmur of conversations and people settling down to expectant silence
You don't see a sea of faces, merely squares on a grid.
Some with moving heads, others with names written starkly on black squares.
You crack a joke and there's no wave of laughter .
You don't know if the audience is listening or not.
Rehearsals are no different from the main program.
You log in and speak to the host or co-host.
You worry about sharing screens and wonder if the audience gets it.
Household sounds and glasses clink in the background.
TV noises intrude.
And then, when everyone is muted, silence.
If there are over a hundred people on the program, you see and hear nothing.
It's your voice and the slides on screen.
The absence of feedback eats into your enthusiasm.
Public speaking is about getting the pulse of the audience in the first few minutes.
You see people nodding when you make a point.
Or a few yawning.
That's your cue to change the pace.
Online, each audience member is in a separate place.
Public is not a collective anymore
Just voices on disconnected screens.
F 15, Typhoon and Tornado. Smile Please
You remember group photographs back in school?
Where we slicked down our hair, smirked at the camera and still looked awkward
The photographer squinting through and directing people to shift up and down?
We've sat through it every year and the framed results end up in attics
They still bring back memories in a rush years or decades later when someone posts it on social media.
Seeing the same thing happen in another context is hilarious.
Imagine fighter jets flying in the air.
The fearsome firepower held in check as they hover meekly in a formation one behind the other
A photographer sits in the open backdoor of a cargo plane.
The jets are framed in front of him.
The sounds of the jets and the noise up in the air louder than any rock concert.
But the photographer is unfazed.
He herds the planes in the air into the perfect formation for his shot.
Looking through the viewfinder and gesturing wildly
Dutifully, they move up, down or sideways, depending on this instructions.
He treats them exactly like schoolchildren in a school group shot.
And that's what he's reduced them to.
Do you get the same feeling?
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A billionaire chats with a YouTube creator