The Other Vulture

Kevin Carter was a South-African photo-journalist. In1993, he captured a haunting photograph, The Vulture And The Little Girl. The picture won him the Pulitzer Prize. It depicted the famine-stricken child painfully crawling towards the United Nations food camp, while a vulture stood nearby waiting for the child to die so that it could feed. When the image was published in The New York Times, it shocked the entire world. No one knew what happened to the child, not even Carter, who left the place just after the picture was taken.

Later on, it was revealed that the child was actually a boy. Carter then faced heavy criticism for not helping the child directly. He was named The Other Vulture- the one behind the camera. The weight of criticism became unbearable for him so he committed suicide in 1994.

That was about Carter. But in some way, it’s also about us.

We too hold our phones not always to inform but to publicise ourselves. We flaunt our lives, not realising the impact we are creating with the content with push online.

Who is watching?

What are they feeling?

We film food content while someone is going to bed hungry. We post accident before checking if anyone needs help. We post gym selfies while someone is too sick to even get out of bed. We record fights instead of stopping them. We offer help with one hand and hold the phone with other.

But, maybe, we never meant this way. But in the race to create content we are forgetting the content of our character.

We call it influence, but what are we really influencing.

Are we building care, or just building an audience?

By: Sidrah Shafat