"Videotape," the fiction short story, by Don DeLillo, is written in a way to make us, as readers, feel guilty and to create us a sense of eeriness. Not only reading this story, but also experiencing the situation in the second person point-of-view has shown that this story needs to be interpreted based off of modern culture and how advances in technology have affected our thinking and our reaction to situations. We, as a society, need to stop allowing the ability to so easily and quickly share our experiences with the world, get in the way of how we react and what we feel we need to do when faced with tragedy. DeLillo wants us readers, particularly of the younger crowd, to experience "Videotape" as we would have, had we been the little girl videotaping the man as he was murdered; he is putting us in the situation of being behind the lens. "Videotape" shows how technological advances, such as video cameras, have caused us as a society to become so familiar with tragedy. We, unfortunately, see it more often now than ever before, and as depicted in "Videotape," when faced with tragedy, our instinct nowadays is to pull out our cameras in hopes of sharing our experiences with the world. This leads to distraction and uncertainty of how to go about the situation and help the victim. 

It is easy to feel as though the narrator is speaking directly to us as young individuals when reading "Videotape." His sentences are casual, therefore, relatable. He introduces us to the little girl who is using her family's video camera in the car. He states, "You know about families and their video cameras" (59). Unknowingly, this statement foreshadows what is to happen in the story.  It creates a common ground between the narrator and us young readers. It is basically proving that we do, indeed, know how families value their videotapes, and we are familiar with the desire to capture as much as possible in these tapes rather than experiencing the moment firsthand. Innocently, that is what the little girl if the story is doing. She assumes that she is capturing memories on video that she and her family will later be able to reminisce on; however, little does she know, she is allowing the use of technological advances to get in the way of how she and her family can help the murder victim. The narrator states, "He sees the girl and waves briefly, wagging a hand without taking it off the wheel- and underplayed reaction that makes you like him" (60). This line creates an emotion in the little girl's head that makes her think nothing bad could happen. The man she is filming is nice; the last thing she is expecting is for him to get murdered. This is the world that we live in today. We look at a certain situation through a lens, not expecting the unexpected, yet when the unexpected takes place, we allow the technology in front of us to take over and control our reactions.

There is not very much descriptive detail in this story; the narrator does not heavily describe the sounds, smells, or even sights surrounding the little girl with the camera and the man she is filming. However, the narrator still creates images relating to the theme he is portraying. For example, he explains how if we were to be showing the video of the murder to someone, we would "rub it in their face" (62). We would be creating a situation in which we act as though there is an element of uncertainty. We have watched the video over and over again, almost having it memorized, but as we show it to somebody else for the first time, it suddenly becomes suspenseful, causing us to react in astonishment with the first-time viewer. If this is the case, why is so hard for us to react that way when the murder is happening live, in front of our very own eyes? It is unfortunate that we now take more pride in the reaction of others to what we captured than we do in our "save the day" moments. Why? Because they are becoming fewer and farther between.

Although the narrator describes the shock in the little girl by the way camera shook as the man was shot, that is the only emotion we pick up from the girl. This shows us that everyone, even someone as young as the little girl filming the murder, is conforming to the "through the lens" lifestyle that we now live. There is a sense of repetition throughout this story. The line, "The car approaches briefly, then falls back," is used multiple times (60). There is a symbolic interpretation behind this line other than the literal meaning. The line represents the several chances the little girl was given to put down the camera to help the man by witnessing the murder through her "unaided eye" (59). Each time the car "approached briefly" could have been a warning that something drastic was about to happen, but instead of realizing that, the little girl ignored it and continued to observe through the secondary view. Perhaps this chance of witnessing through an unaided eye could have actually led the little girl in the direction of murderer. 

