In the last few weeks, I participated in two livestreams. One was the electronic wake of my grandmother. The other was a livestreamed BTS concert for my thesis. They are very different, but they made me reflect on the possibilities and challenges of livestreams in the new normal.
In March, my beloved grandmother passed away. Her wake was held at St Peter Funeral Homes, which had given us the password to access the CCTV in the chapel. Through this service, relatives around the world could mourn together with everyone onsite. I went to the portal, picked the correct chapel, and entered the password to access the camera.
And the livestream began:
It’s my mom! ‘Look up!’ I murmur in Tagalog. She is walking away from the casket, getting ready to pick up a call. Soon, the screen is still. My grandma’s white casket is in the middle, surrounded by bright lights and white flowers. From this angle, I cannot see her. I press my face closer to the screen, trying to get a better view of my grandma. The camera angle does not change. I sigh in defeat. I focus on the framed picture of my grandma on the left. It is pixelated. I close my eyes for a while, filling in the details of her warm smile in my head.
Soon, some mourners come into view. They are wearing face masks. I cannot see their expressions under it. I cannot even tell who they are. Sadness and helplessness take over me. How can I mourn properly, when I cannot even see my grandma? When I cannot even recognise the people I am grieving with? I sigh at the camera too. From this angle, I feel like I am the deceased…watching from above, unable to control anything or to be heard by the people I am seeing.
Watching this livestream, I felt so much distance. The camera angle was not ideal – I could not see my grandma and most of the guests. The video quality was also not the best. I felt like I was watching an old recording, instead of something happening live in 2022. In addition, I could not read people’s emotions through the masks so I could not feel with them. Finally, the physical interactions of the guests were limited due to corona. No one was comforting anyone via touch. Not seeing these normal cues we use to express love made me feel disconnected somehow.
This was my second e-burol. I accessed the first one almost 10 years ago. I was a young student in Singapore back then, and I remember thinking how strange it was to livestream such an occasion! But I felt comforted in that wake. The camera in that chapel allowed me to see more guests and their interactions. Being away from home, seeing my loved ones in one place comforted me.
While I did not feel comforted this time, I did not feel weird accessing an e-burol anymore. After two years of COVID and being forced to host all types of events online, electronic wakes and funerals are no longer out of the ordinary. They were super important during the pandemic, actually. Travel restrictions and social distancing guidelines prevented people from coming together, but we still need to remember our loved ones and participate in ceremonies and rituals. Will online end-of-life services become the new normal? Not sure. I showed it to my classmate and he said, “Anna, that’s wild.” Not everyone will be comfortable mixing technology and taboo things for sure, but maybe it is a necessary option as we live in the new normal.
Livestreams were also an important lifeline in the entertainment industries during the pandemic. Travel restrictions prevented people from going to concert venues, and concerts had their audience numbers slashed or were cancelled completely to prevent masses of people from coming together. These caused huge losses in the entertainment industries. Live events went virtual, enabling performers and entertainment companies to recoup some of the losses.
South Korea is ahead of the curve when it comes to livestreamed concerts. As we can see in the video below, K-Pop livestreams indulge the senses and foster connections between the fans and idols despite the distance:
I decided to look deeper into these K-Pop livestreams for my thesis. In April, I watched a livestream of BTS’s Permission to Dance concert. BTS was touring again as borders had opened up in some places. They were performing at a stadium in Las Vegas, while online fans livestreamed the event through the WeVerse platform. I bought the Multiview livestream ticket, which allowed me access to six cameras. The livestream began at 19:30 Vegas time. For me, it was 4:30 AM. I logged into WeVerse and started the livestream.
My eyes are glued to the screen. Music is blasting and six tiny screens are streaming different visions of the same thing. My eyes dart from square to square: A close up of my bias’s face. Full body view of all members dancing. A view from the audience below. Then, a camera man briefly crossing and disappearing offscreen. All these movements…I cannot look away. How can I choose a single one? I keep all six cameras running.
V grabs Camera One and pulls it to his face. He stares directly at me. ‘Ahhhh!’ My heart flutters and I cup my warm cheeks in my hands. V is singing with intensity…rapping almost. Each word lands differently…his eyes are also communicating something somehow. Jungkook sneaks into the frame. Now he’s looking at me too! ‘Jungkook…’ I say, my hands patting the screen. I’m so glad I woke up early for this! On the right, the chat is blowing up. Proclamations of love, lyrics, messages of support… When I read the messages, I can almost hear the fans screaming. Oh! Dutch_Bangtanlover writes again. I wonder if we’ll ever cross paths.
I loved how energetic the livestream felt. It was a lot of things going on at once: six live feeds, a very active chatroom, and an ever-increasing microphone counter at the top. It was very different from the last livestreamed concert I watched, which had one fixed camera pointed at the stage and no interactive elements (It was easy to zone out and Open New Tab…). This time, I was fully engaged, because there were different things competing for my attention.
I also loved how the idols played with the camera. When interacting online, there’s always some kind of distance, because you are obviously separated from the person. But the idols grabbing the camera and looking ‘directly’ at viewers kind of bridged that distance for me. I felt connected to them and imagined that they were singing to me. I appreciated that they played with the camera to ‘interact’ with online fans even as they were performing to a live audience in Vegas.
Being on the receiving end of these playful camera tricks felt nice. But if we think about it, the idols on the other side cannot see us. We feel special when they look directly at us / make ‘eye contact’, but all that is happening is them looking into a black box.
Those are my thoughts for now, and thank you for reading. I hope to learn more about livestreams in the weeks to come.
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