Phonewatching

Anyone else ever been jarred from what someone else has as their phone wallpaper? Kind of shitty you were already looking at it in the first place, and now you’re casting judgement. Dickhead, mind your own business.

1.

I have a bad habit of looking at other people’s phone screens on transit. I’m fascinated by it. Little glimpses into people’s lives. My problematic voyeuristic tendency. The saddest thing I’ve seen was someone, over the course of the R5 route, nonstop checking their banking app. They’d close it after checking a number that I couldn’t make it, put the phone in their lap, and rest their head against the bouncing window. Then a few minutes later they would heave back up, and repeat the process. Happened almost half a year ago, but I’m sure it happens everyday, someone struggling with life’s demands. I hope it worked out for them, maybe they’ve switched to Genshin Impact as their bus activity, or maybe playing Genshin was why they were checking their bank status so worriedly in the first place.

Recently on the way up the mountain I saw the phone wallpaper of a male student who sat next to me, probably around my age. Their phone screen was some K-pop girl. And as all K-pop idols are, she was conservatively-scantily-clad. He unlocks his phone, and proceeds to watch tiktoks of what I assume is the same woman and her group for almost 30 minutes. Dancing, interviews, sketch videos, all of this woman. I wonder what the level of shame you don’t need to have to be capable of displaying this degeneracy to the public. Well, to the spying public.

I find it very close to someone just straight-up watching pornography on the bus. The feeling elicited from his behaviour is the same for this person, he might as well have been. Fandomization of idols always revolves around lust; these fans are emotionally unavailable apart from the parasocial situation they’re in. One in which they share with other fans. And one in which they happily unconsciously share with strangers around them. They’re such a fan they had to change their wallpaper to this woman, incredibly creepy perverted behavior. The normalization of being a fan has done insurmountable damage to people’s social awareness, mental growth, and their ability to participate in society. I considered the guy next to me no better (far far worse) than the shoulder-to-shoulder abodeless man smoking from his faux-marble crack pipe (It looked shockingly well made). I hope in the next ten years we’ll see fan carry a derogatory tone. The first thing he sees, and the last sight before bed is most likely his phone screen. That does something to you mentally, sending you overboard into the obsessive.

2.

The sweetest thing is a photo of a spouse, or a lover. It’s really quite touching to see a 60-year-old man with a photo of his wife as his background. The modern version of a photo in the wallet. A photo in the cloud. At that age figuring out how to even change the wallpaper to a photo must have been a little bit of a struggle, but you can tell love drove the action. The funny alternate version of this is if it’s a photo of the person and their spouse together, but they chose a photo where they’re either much more photogenic, or takes up more of the photo than their spouse. Maybe this is their way of making their narcissistic-mirror-gazing socially acceptable, spousal-ly acceptable.

I’ve occasionally over my life seen people whose phone background was just a photo of them. I find it hilarious, and if I know the person it’s always felt weirdly appropriate to someone who does that. Not even that they’re narcissistic or self-absorbed in any way (although this can happen), it’s just such a weird thing to do. You see it sometimes in Snapchat power-users, or managers and supervisors over the age of 35. Maybe they constantly lose their phone, and it works the way a dog tag does, identifying owners.

3.

I get sad when I see adults play mobile games on the bus. Especially those games that look meant for kids. Remember seeing a 50 year old woman play Cut the Rope one time, god what a dark place to be in. I’m the asshole I know, not like my 2 months of Pokemon Go was any better. But I knew I was a fucking loser for it, not to say I’m calling them that, but I wonder if they know the behavior they engage in is in no way good for them. This low-tier entertainment, engaged with for the passage of time.

We all probably know what the mentally healthiest thing to do on transit is. That is, to just go into life accessoryless. No headphones, no phone. Maybe a book if you can handle the motion sickness. Just to have that time to think and rawly sit there for a brutal 30-60 minutes. But sometimes headphones are a form of protection from unwanted strangers, making advances—or taking it as an invitation that you are open for the world. Not always a bad thing, but most likely a bad thing. Second best is probably just music, checking your phone merely for the skipping of your shuffled songs. But it will most likely shift your brain’s waking-up time to a delayed arrival, it would have been better to warm it up yourself by thinking.

I’m surprised by how many people are playing games, scrolling TikTok/Instagram, or watching YouTube on the bus. What happened to using too much cellular data? Maybe it’s an ingrained habit from youth, but there was a genuine fear of watching YouTube without wifi. And the idea of someone just rapidly scrolling through TikTok or Reels is hilarious, just so publically slopped. It is deeply shameful behaviour to spend time scrolling on those platforms. But so ingrained that they take it out and do so in public. There’s a trend of people who are out of university, employed at a 9-5 email-esque job, married or living together with a spouse, and all they do at the end of their shift, kicking off their shoes to leave haphazardly at the door, is to continue scrolling until sleep takes them away from their still-playing phone. No more hobbies anymore, no more interests, just scrolling and scrolling and liking and liking, sending and receiving, commenting and posting, adding and subscribing, reporting and skipping. All they do is curate their content algorithm, to better serve their future slop consumption.

My phone wallpaper by the way is the Weather App. Make of that what you will!