Gen Z Complain About The Difficulties of Using Digital Cameras
Generation Z users on TikTok are complaining about the difficulties of using a digital camera — instead of a smartphone — for taking photos.
Earlier this year, PetaPixel reported on how younger TikTok users had discovered that traditional digital cameras outperform smartphones in terms of taking photos and were eager to learn about DSLRs.
@teresaviolettt #digitalcamera #sonycybershot ♬ original sound – Dee Smith
Now, Generation Z are taking to to TikTok to discuss the hardships of being the owner of a digital camera in their friendship — and the frustration of uploading photos from a digital camera in a new trend.
‘I Work Day and Night!’
In the amusing TikTok trend, that is set to a scene from the 2016 film Hidden Figures in which a character describes how she works “like a dog, day and night,” social media users film the long and arduous behind-the-scenes process behind owning a digital camera.
The viral trend appears to have been started by influencer Teresa Violet in June. In her original TikTok video, which amassed 8.8 million views, Violet humorously reveals what life looks like “when you’re the friend with the digital camera and you get home from any social function.”
Violet films herself laboring away as she removes the SD card from her Sony Cybershot camera as soon as she returns home from a social event — because her friends, who are used to the immediacy of smartphone photography, want to see the pictures immediately.
She then shows viewers how she has to put the SD card into a reader and then wait as she transfers the photo files from the card reader to her computer.
@livhabig volunteer work i swear #fyp #foryou ♬ original sound – Dee Smith
Violet’s video was followed by multiple other TikTokers who also bemoaned owning a digital camera in their friendship group.
Other social media users filmed similar TikTok videos — that gave viewers an insight into the laborious process of uploading photos from a digital camera.
@yviescarlet i work like a DOG day and NIGHT #digicam #digitalcamera #whatnow #nightout #girlhood ♬ original sound – Olivia Meets Her Match
Meanwhile, influencer Yvie Scarlet lamented the struggle of being “the designated camera girlie” and how her smartphone-using friends pester her for the superior photos from her digital camera after a night out.
@jaketermine I thought this was the i work like a dog day and night audio and i’m too lazy to redo
And TikToker Jake Termine filmed a TikTok video on the unreliability of SD cards compared to a smartphone — recalling how he took a digital camera on a trip and the memory card broke.
‘But The Photos Always Turn Out So Good on a Digital Camera’
In another TikTok video, which racked up five million views, Alexia Bryant revealed how she had to toil away uploading photos from her Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1 after game day.
@alexiabryanttt But the photos always turn out so good so it’s worth #digitalcamera #collegegameday ♬ original sound – Dee Smith
However, Bryant admitted that the pain of using a digital camera instead of a smartphone was worth it because “the photos always turn out so good.”
In recent years, the advances in smartphone photography have wiped out decades of camera industry growth. Consumers no longer see the point in carrying an extra, bulky camera device and between 2010 and 2021, worldwide camera shipments dropped by 93%.
However there has been a newfound appreciation for traditional digital cameras among Generation Z — which has been seen in the resurgence of point-and-shoot digital cameras of the early 2000s and film photography with younger users.
Image credits: Header photo sourced via TikTok/@teresaviolett; TikTok/@yviescarlet ; TikTok/@meghan.pruitt.
