2024 06 24

Houses in my hood at dusk, along with our fresh new “green” alley. Chicago, Illinois. April, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how these days, so much shit happens with zero notice… unless it goes viral on social media. Previously, this was also the case but instead of social media being the purveyor of information, it was good old fashioned news television and newspapers. Because everyone was, more or less, consuming the same sources of information, we all felt like we were, more or less, in on the same conversations. Water cooler talk, as they used to call it back when people had regular jobs and watched Must See TV. These days, everyone is curating their information feeds to their own personal interests, be it tv channels or social media accounts. As a result, there’s no overall sense of unity, which exaggerates the feeling that everything is spiraling out of control — which it also very well might be!

The other day, on twitter (otherwise known as the bird app I mean x), the only thing being discussed was the “hawk tuah” girl. While funny, it’s just a silly reference to oral sex and hardly qualifies as The Headline News Story. But that’s what it was! Surely, Hawk Tuah Girl will soon get her own show and become our next celebrity personality, as she (inadvertently or maybe very advertently) managed to gain the most amount of attention, which is our most valuable currency these days, resulting from some drunken talk outside of a bar.

Anyway.

Speaking of stories going completely unnoticed, this great video below popped into my social feed and spurred this post’s thought process, which further led to the feeling that I really have no idea what’s going on anymore! A movie, by one of my favorite directors, and based on a photobook (update: which is also from Chicago!), is now in theaters and I simply had no idea it even existed. Sure, I don’t keep up on the pictures like I used to, but I am pretty tapped into the world of photography and photobooks. Alas, this movie essentially didn’t exist to me.

(Update: I’ve been hearing a lot more about this film since posting about how I’d heard nothing about this film)

On the subject of not existing, it’s also crazy how so many people put so many hours into doing something — be it a youtube channel or photography or blogging — only to be almost universally ignored. The guy who made this has 145 videos and only 1,500 subscribers (along with one new one in me). That’s roughly a gain of only ten new subscribers every time you spend an entire day or more making and posting a new video, assuming he also hasn’t deleted a bunch of past videos. You have to put in the hours, be patient, and be persistent. Luck doesn’t hurt, either. That’s what it takes to be the next Jeff Nichols. And even then, the chances that your huge film project goes completely ignored by the world is remarkably high! It’s brutal what we subject ourselves to in the course of pursuing art.

Now I need to get my ass to the theater.

-Clayton