Why Scoble Asks You to Not Look at the Camera
This Blog entry will talk about Channel9 Videos. This completes my disingenuous exposition.
Apart from Robert Scoble’s famous tension-filled laugh (which by the way is “socially acceptable”—it just sounds tense to me—but then, again, I like “free jazz” and Sponge Bob does not for the love of grandma’s cookies), there is the continual request to not look in the camera. This advice seems strange to the philistine children of the Reagan era—especially the “technical” folks at Microsoft. But my lack of formal education in media history suggests to me that during the 1980s, the rise of the “infomercial” introduced this innovation. This is a professional camera technique that manipulates the psychological powers of the viewer.
When the subjects in camera do not look at the camera, they suggest to the viewer that they are, at best, part of the conversation—at worst (which more often) the viewer is encouraged to indulge in voyeuristic conquests just short of the pornographic experience. When the talking heads do not look in the camera, the viewer can feel like they are uncovering documentation instead of being subject to a presentation. This technique seduces the viewer into thinking they are in charge of the situation (or at least genuinely respected) when (more often) they are not. The reason why I say they are not is because there are more infomercials in “popular” media than documentaries. The arithmetic does not lie. The camera often does.