This video is about road trips. It is also about home videos and the act of making them.
This video addresses Rick Prelinger's idea that the American road trip is a product of a bygone era, or in other words, dead.
Just like home videos.
Almost everyone carries a high-quality videocamera in their pockets. Everyone is shooting videos all of the time, some as short as six seconds, some as long as movies.
Everyone is documenting everything.
But you wouldn't call them home videos.
If you listen to the full interview with Rick Prelinger, which you can find at KCRW, you will hear him talk about the ephemerality of home videos. The home videos that he used to create No More Road Trips? was abandoned. No one wanted them, not even the descendants of those who recorded them.
We live in a world defined by ephemerality. We document everything, gather our likes and hearts, and then move on to the next thing.
And yet, we find ourselves scrolling through old Facebook posts. Do you remember this Instagram? This Vine was so funny. I can't believe I used to look like that. Whatever happened to that old place, to those people?
We rarely gather around as a family, Dad dragging out the old projector, Mom making popcorn, to watch old home videos. But we still remember. We still make the past our entertainment. There is still an audience for our nostalgia.
The home video is dead. Long live the home video.
Adam Cecil is a writer living in Brooklyn. He is also the Managing Editor of this zine. You can find more of his work on his website.