I watched the Christmas drone show for a minute before realizing again that I was facing another example of nothing. A show without noise, without vibration, without smell, without emotion, without humanity. A perfect metaphor for this flaccidly digital era we are in.
Aerial figurines of peasant women, palm trees and volcanoes and, in the non-emotional climax of this grotesquely silent spectacle, the shield of Lanzarote. How much was paid for this thing? Damn.
It is not a local problem, the entire planet is silently sickening towards the worst of its abysses: the suicide of its own civilization. The real pandemic: digital silence.
Do you know what moment impressed me the most from the confinements we were illegally forced into during 2020? Not hearing children playing on the terraces and balconies. They were forced to leave them at home for fear of the pandemic and caused them an even worse evil: their inhumanity.
There are no longer children's noises in restaurants. It is no longer the parents who give them the mobile phone to shut them up, but society forces you to do so because the childless are now more and a careless noise can disrupt the entire culinary experience that they will record in detail on Instagram.
We no longer smile, we pose between story and story. This new year it was news that a couple decided to kiss at the beginning of 2024, while everyone recorded the pyrotechnic show on the Champs de Mars, Paris, with their mobiles. A year ago it was news that a guy was simply enjoying his beer while watching Tiger Woods hit the ball, when the rest of the world was with the little machine.
Today I left Reducto while a van of young tourists were eager to take photos of the beautiful sunset. With their mobiles. From inside the van. They took some shitty photos and missed the good stuff, observing the beauty, without further ado.
What should be normal, the healthy thing, has become news because of its exceptionality. The human race, extraordinarily adaptable to all media, will also adapt to this digital void we have entered. But something has broken forever in the soul of man.
We will adapt, but we are not becoming more intelligent. We will survive, but without touching each other, without having children, dying alone. In silence. With laughter that is no longer heard. Contacts without touch. Eyes without glances. We are fucking digital assholes.
