This Hilarious YouTube Video is a Brutal Take Down of Photography
A YouTube video from a relatively new channel has lampooned the state of modern photography that many will find relatable.
Hobby enthusiasts of all colors, particularly photographers, have been guilty of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). Anyone who ever splashed out on a lens that maybe they didn’t really need will find this eight-minute photography parody an enjoyable watch.
The video is by The Hobby Trap, a “brutally honest video essay” channel. Titled “You Are Not a Photographer. You Are a Shopper,” it goes through the entire lifespan of a photography enthusiast.
Borrowing heavily from the Doomer online subculture and featuring long-established memes like Trollface, the video tells the sorry tale of the protagonist who starts by buying a basic DSLR with an 18-55mm kit lens before logging onto r/photography and being mercilessly mocked for their camera equipment.
“We cave in. We spend $125 on the nifty fifty,” says the narrator.
The video mocks pixel peepers who take photos of brick walls and zoom in 200 percent, only to post photos on Instagram where they’re viewed on mobile phones that have six-inch screens.
It’s worth pointing out that the video does make heavy use of generative AI; the lenses in the video all feature garbled text. The voice itself may be AI-generated; at one point it says “f slash four,” meaning f/4 aperture.
The video touches on the perceived warring factions online: Sony users who turn photography into a “spreadsheet,” while Fuji and Leica users act like “shooting JPEG is a spiritual act.”
Film photographers, or “tone zone hipsters,” catch some strays too. “We abandoned specs for a dusty Canon AE-1,” says the narrator. “We wear a wool beanie in July. We photograph gas stations at night and spend more on developing film than on food because the grain looks vibey.”
At the crescendo of the video, the photographer has amassed $10,000 worth of equipment and is at a children’s birthday party. Disaster strikes when that expensive Sony 50mm f/1.2 G Master locks onto the wrong target and the key shot gets missed. Meanwhile, a grandma who “doesn’t know what aperture is” nails the shot on her iPhone 11 thanks to computational photography.
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