Something that was always very bizarre to me was watching sports. Growing up, I played a lot of sports, but didn’t watch any sports. And this is the funny thing with being a spectator versus being a doer, it is literally not even the same thing.

For example, even though I played linebacker, outside and inside linebacker, my sophomore and junior year of high school, I had very little idea how the game of football was played by the other positions. In fact, when you’re actually playing football, your position is highly specialized, and your vision is actually very poor. For example, if you’re a wide receiver, to be able to run topspeed and peer over your cramped shoulder (you are very bulky with all the protective equipment), peering through the tiny limited visor of your helmet, it is almost impossible to see the ball coming at you.

Compare this to being a football fanatic, watching football on TV. You see a birds eye Panopticon view of everything, you have god mode. And when you see certain players mess up, you yell at them with indignation. But once again, nobody in real life actually has that Birdseye view perspective. What would actually be more accurate, is if you strapped a GoPro to to the front facing helmet of a player, and saw from their perspective.

Another realization that I had about porn, nobody has sex like that in real life. Real life sex, is often done in the dark, and you have limited visibility, and most of your focus and your sensations is in your nether regions, and sight isn’t actually that important. Also, there is an interaction in interplay with your partner, that is more subtle, which is not a concept in porn.

This is why I find when non-Street Photographers critique street photography to be absurd: non-practitioners should not critique practitioners, if one does not actually have real life experience doing the thing. In other words, if you don’t play basketball yet you watch basketball and critique basketball players, you are a nerd.

Why observe, and spectate?

So then what is the purpose of observing, and spectating? Is it adrenaline seeking? Novelty seeking? Self education learning, or something else?

At least with television, it is to feed you more advertisements.