YouTube – ‘Look Up’ – Written, Performed & Directed by Gary Turk – Published on April 25, 2014
‘Look Up’ is a lesson taught to us through a love story, in a world where we continue to find ways to make it easier for us to connect with one another, but always results in us spending more time alone.
Gary Turk’s viral video that speaks to many, but is objectionable to those fully committed to navigating their lives via their screens. One posted comment reads:
PadApex – W… T… F… Gary.. You’re basically assuming that not doing things the previous generations did, means your quality of life is worse? i mean really? there is nothing wrong with technology improving life like it is. there were concerns like this back when newspapers began being mass-produced, people would commute while reading those and eventually they would be called anti-social as well, but it still became the standard. Just because you’re not comfortable with humanity changing it’s way of living doesn’t mean things are worse than they were before, just different.
I hear PadApex’s age-old lament of the older folks baulking at progress. I wish PadApex could spend one day in my shoes as a counselor deeply touched by the profound loneliness and sense of isolation experienced by so many busy and fully media-connected professional Washingtonians. The sentiment expressed in the video is systemic; the fall-out of the immediate gratification of virtual connection is often, paradoxically, profound disconnection.