You are driving down the road in a red truck. Looming mountain ranges blanketed with lodgepole pines rise in the distance as you continue down a narrow street lined with shops and pedestrians. You come to a halt at a stoplight in the town square, a small intersection marked by an iconic arch constructed out of shed elk antlers. Within minutes you are cruising down the road again, blissfully ignorant of what has just occurred. Unbeknownst to you, thousands of people from around the world watched you drive through the intersection on their computer screens, emphatically commenting variations of “RED TRUCK!” in virtual harmony.
This Truman Show-esque universe has become a reality for those in Jackson, Wyoming, a small city between the Teton and Gros Ventre mountain ranges well-known for its ski resort villages.
It all started on July 20, 2016, when a YouTube live feed placed in Jackson’s town square on the intersection of Broadway Street and Cache Street jumped from a few viewers to a several thousand. Appropriately titled “Jackson Hole Town Square,” the live footage stream is a part of a project to promote tourism and is one of more than twenty such cameras in Jackson. But out of the twenty video streams, the town square footage was the only to take off as a social media sensation. After the link was tossed between small forums on sites like Reddit and 4chan, it finally garnered enough attention to be placed in YouTube’s recommended section. This promotion made the seemingly random live stream accessible to millions and increased its social media popularity, even warranting a mention across the pond in a Britain’s Daily Mail article.
Online media is constantly pushed forward by random internet crazes that take the web by storm. The Jackson Hole live stream is no exception, and it has a particularly goofy charm because of the story being built around it by online viewers and Jackson natives alike. At any given time, there are as many as 2,500 spectators scrutinizing the virtual window into the town square, commenting in real time on the people and cars passing through. The comments are gone just as quickly as they arrive, and they range from announcements like “Dog in truck!” or “Black Jeep!!” to remarks about pedestrians jaywalking or people strolling too slowly. The virtual conversation between the viewer and those viewed has created an air of energy in the block of the town square. In the couple of weeks that the webcam has been up, there have been dozens of people dancing and holding up signs for the camera as they pass through the intersection. Viewers have also witnessed a man doing the worm under the antler arch, a bride twerking in the middle of the road, and most importantly, the appearance of a red truck that became so popular, #redtruck starting trending on Twitter and is still a comment section rallying cry for viewers watching the feed.
This isn’t the first time live stream technology has invaded social media. The current phenomenon is reminiscent of Twitch, an interactive and extremely popular streaming site where tens of thousands of people play videogames together simultaneously. Live streaming traditionally dull, humdrum events is not a new notion either. In 2008, a live cam called Big Rig Travels, a YouTube account made to document interstate truck hauls from a mounted dashcam, gained unforeseen attention on several online sites. Years later, the American Museum of Natural History started promoting a live stream of maintenance workers washing the museum’s blue whale model, Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology set up cameras on their outdoor birdfeeders, and Big Train TV set up live streaming at a railroad crossing in Bergenfield, N.J. All of these online feeds had one thing in common: people were logging on to watch and comment in real time.
So why are all of these viral voyeurs watching live footage? Some may watch it because they want to see the town of Jackson. In an interview with The Politic, Jackson’s Mayor Sara Flitner noted that it was “fun to watch the organic excitement created about the town square” and that she was not surprised the footage went viral, as “[Jackson] is a quirky, vibrant community, and the webcam captures those qualities.” But another underlying answer may be more simple than we think—in a world that continues to push the pace of life to its max, these videos give viewers exactly what they want: the ability to slow down. The genre is what is known oxymoronically as the “slow internet,” a place that revels in what is traditionally considered ordinary and banal. The viewer can participate in what they are watching with minimal demand, and, in a way, meditate their anxieties away by being able to tune out without missing a beat.
While the video streams may run at a slow pace from the viewer’s perspective, the footage’s comment section is still inherently social. Those who are engaged often watch for long periods of time, chatting with others in the comments section, and becoming emotionally connected to the people and objects they see in the footage. In an interview with The Politic, one Twitter user and Jackson Hole live stream viewer, @hannahhelio, said that she “saw an SUV parked with its panic lights on” and was “disappointed when [she] came back minutes later to see that the SUV was gone,” noticing that “it felt like a TV show.” The connections, although logically meaningless, are undeniably human. Viewers inevitably crave that which is novel and react to events emotionally in the same way that we become attached to characters in TV shows or movies. The scenic backdrop, small town feel, and laugh-at-yourself nature of those walking by certainly gives the Jackson live stream the essence of a show. With viewers from around the world tuning in daily, it truly is a big world peering into a small town.
We may never know the true motivations behind Jackson Hole’s dedicated live stream viewer base. But one thing is undeniable: thousands continue to watch these “slow” live stream videos, and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Bob Strobel, a Jackson Hole native and the brains behind the live webcams, reported that even though this internet fad may pass, he has no intention of stopping the live streaming, and is even hoping to expand the cameras to other areas of Jackson’s scenic city. As live streaming becomes more and more of a priority for large social networking sites, the popularity of the slow internet genre will likely grow—it may not be uncommon to see people spending hours watching others doing anything from sketching to dancing in real time. In spaces as unpredictable as town squares, the possibilities are endless. Perhaps such an outlet serves a deeply human psychological need in a world filled with anxiety and stress. “Viewers are interested and sentimental about what [they] see.” Flitner insisted. “There is a reason people all over the world like to watch it.”
And so, at the intersection of Cache and Broadway, the traffic rolls on.