NEAT

We’ve always liked to consider our company as existing within the overlap between technology and comedy/creativity. Well, listening to NPR yesterday I discovered the Cultivated Wit of shooting things with a high powered rifle.

Tracking Point is a startup gun company (yup, that exists) from take one guess where. Hint: it’s not Silicon Valley. That’s right, Texas. Where technology goes to kill stuff.

Choosing not to dwell too much on the actualized sci-fi plot point of a gun that decides for itself when to fire, there is one specific detail of this story that offends me gravely. And no, not for any second amendment/gun debate reasons. Rather, this quote offends me as a content creator.

“They like to post videos; they like to be in constant communication with groups or networks,” Schauble says. “This kind of technology, in addition to making shooting more fun for them, also allows shooting to be something that they can share with others.”

The presuppositions contained within this quote kind of blow my mind with precision accuracy from 500 yards away.

1. Who out there is thinking: “You know, I really want to shoot guns but it’s too hard to Vine and fire at the same time.” I’m pretty sure the nature of pointing a machine at a thing then blasting it to smithereens is the appeal. Not tweeting about it.
2. The vast majority of use cases for this gun will be shooting targets, and I can think of few things more boring than a video feed from the barrel of a gun pointing at a piece of paper before it fires and jerks the camera away.
3. The most interesting content that could be created would be a hunting video, but that essentially becomes a public admission that you suck at shooting and thus something no true sportsman would have any interest in doing.
4. The Criminal Minds script about the serial sniper who posts all his murders onto the internet is already halfway through editing by this point, I am sure. Can’t wait for that version of our future!

We need to start establishing some clear boundaries around what we do and don’t want to share on the internet. I realize examples like this one exist because of out-of-touch marketers slapping the “kids love their social networks” label on something moronic, but how do we (lumping myself into the “constant-communication-craving young people” demographic) effectively broadcast that we can be sold on something without it plugging directly into our Facebook feed? How do we stop production of the condom that checks you into the Bone Zone on Foursquare every time one of them is opened?

Let me just come out and say it: The majority of people under 30 can still enjoy things without sharing them. I promise. I think. Let me ask Twitter.