We as human beings are born with an insatiable curiosity. We have an innate yearning to explore the world around us. This curiosity is evident throughout Don DeLillo's "Videotape" both in the girl behind the camera and the narrator's own thoughts and leaves the reader with many questions to ponder. Why was the girl filming this bald, middle-aged man driving down the highway? Why did the narrator watch this video? The more pressing question that we are left with though is not why did he watch the video the first time, but why did he continue to watch it repeatedly? The reason that the narrator did not look away is the same reason why people every day are apathetic towards the violence in our world, because changes in culture and mass media have made our society impassive.  By delving into the details of the narrator's emotional response, or lack thereof, to the videotape, we can see how DeLillo's essay speaks to society's indifference to violence due to overexposure.

The narrator starts out describing the videotape with very vivid language such that we feel like we too are watching the video. He intersperses this description with his own personal thoughts which we, the reader, are able to easily understand and relate to. Missing from his commentary, however, is any emotional connection to what is going on in the video. He describes a situation, in which the normal response would seem to be distress or confusion or anger, with such calmness and ease. It seems as if he is almost indifferent to the murder which is playing out on the screen in front of him. At one point in the story the narrator says, "He is shot, headshot, and the camera reacts, the child reacts," but he himself never shows any response to the random, senseless killing that he just watched (DeLillo 62). He refers to it as awful more than once but never goes into any further detail about his own feelings. 

Why is it such that someone can watch a video of another innocent person driving down the highway who suddenly is shot in the head and have no reaction? The narrator himself alludes to the answer during the story when he describes the people in these videos; "They are famous without names or  faces, spirits living apart from their bodies, the victims and witnesses, the underage criminals, out there somewhere at the edges of perception" (DeLillo 63). The purpose for withholding names in the media is supposed to be for privacy reasons; however, this censorship only adds to the problem. Victims become impersonal, detached figures with whom we feel no connection. The narrator comments on the scene saying, "It is real this time, not fancy movie violence- the realness beneath the layers of cosmetic perception" (DeLillo 62). However, he does not react as if he knows what he is watching is real. He acts no differently than one would when watching a movie. He shows no feelings, no empathy, and no compassionate towards the man. To him, the victim is just as removed and impersonal as an actor. 

What would you do if the victim was someone you knew? Would you still sit there and watch the video over and over? Should whether you know the victim even make a difference? Shouldn't you be just as appalled by the senseless murder of a random person as you would be if the victim was, let's say, your own wife? DeLillo clearly conveys the message that sadly in today's society there is a difference. We don't see these victims as our fellow human beings whose lives matter just as much as our own. These victims are just headlines in the newspaper and stories on the news. We play these videos not because we truly care about the victims or the witnesses but simply as DeLillo puts it, "because it exists, because they have to show it, because is why they're out there" (DeLillo 63). 

During the essay, the narrator casually references the murderer, "Texas Highway Killer." He says that this incident was "either the tenth or eleventh homicide he had committed" (DeLillo 62). With this one line, DeLillo is able to comment on our society's overexposure to violence, and how as a result, we have become desensitized to violence goes on in our world. We have become so accustomed to it that it no longer disturbs us. In fact as DeLillo shows, we are so unappalled by violence that we watch it for fun on television. This is what he is speaking to when he writes, "Seeing someone at the moment he died, dying unexpectedly. This is reason alone to stay fixed on the screen" (DeLillo 63). The narrator's purpose for watching the video is not because of a desire become informed on or inquire about the topic but because for some disturbed reason, he finds it entertaining. 

We are supposed to use the curiosity with which we are born to question and explore our world. Yet, our society no longer questions violence. We watch videos just like the narrator in "Videotape" but we have no clue as to why we continue to watch them. These videos should shake us down to our very core; they should make us question the world we live in and the culture which persists. But, we don't. This problem is communicated when DeLillo writes, "the horror freezes you in your soul, but it doesn't mean you want them to stop."  We realize the violence that exists in our society. We are exposed to it every day in all different aspects of our lives. However, it is this over-exposure that is desensitizing us. We must not accept this brutality as ordinary. "Every breath has two possible endings;" we can either spend our lives ignoring the wrongs in our society or we can concern ourselves with the injustices and strive to maintain a society where in which we are no longer indifferent to violence (DeLillo 63). 

