I recently got a video camera.

When you point a video camera at people, it’s very different than pointing a regular camera at them. With a regular camera, it seems everyone strikes a pose, knows what to do. With a video camera not so much.

A video camera is scarier. Perhaps its thanks to the proliferation of cruel YouTube videos / pranks etc., or our unsettling acceptance of worldwide surveillance… but people seem to get more defensive, nervous, and so forth when a video camera is pointed at them. More clammed-up. It feels like I’m about to do something mean to them, or catch them doing something bad.

Well, some people, at least. Other people go “on” and start hamming it up – playing their character, whatever that may be.

Video cameras are more dangerous than regular cameras.