I saw the video, so it could be true, I guess

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By D.L. Stewart, Staff Writer 5:52 PM Tuesday, November 3, 2009

If you saw the video, you had to be horrified.

A baby stroller rolling toward the edge of a subway platform in Australia. A mom lunging, too late, to stop it. The stroller falling onto the tracks with a train approaching. The stroller disappearing under the wheels of the engine.

It was a video, Matt Lauer observed, guaranteed to “send chills down every parent’s spine.”

But you didn’t have to be a parent to imagine the agony the mother experienced in those moments captured by a security video camera. You just had to be human.

Miraculously, the 6-month-old baby in the stroller escaped with minor injuries and the still-shaken mother was able to talk about the incident with Lauer after the two-week-old video was run and rerun on the Today Show, Monday, Nov. 2.

As I watched the woman struggle to describe her emotions, I had the standard viewer’s reactions: Amazement. Empathy. Relief. But then there was one more:

Cynicism.

Was there really a baby in that stroller, or was it a doll? Did it really land on the tracks? Was the video itself even real, or was it something fabricated on someone’s computer?

Was Subway Baby merely the latest Balloon Boy?

They were just tiny little doubts and I’m not proud of them. I’d love to have such faith in my fellow man and woman that I could accept their words and their videos at full face value.

But maybe I’ve just heard “wolf” cried once too often. Or maybe it’s because, in this era of the ubiquitous camera, there seems to be nothing to which people won’t stoop to pick up a little scrap of fame.

We have become a generation of exhibitionists seeking attention from a generation of voyeurs.

How else to explain those who air their tawdry little lives on any television show that will have them? And those who would watch them do it?

Is there any good reason we know so much about the Octomom and Kate & Jon, even those of us who would be happy not to know anything at all about them?

What once was the road to shame now is the interstate to fame. You did meth 20 years ago? Write a book about it and make sure your agent gets you on the cover of People. You had sexual relations with your father? Promote your book on as many television programs as possible. Your greatest accomplishment was getting your girlfriend pregnant? Expose yourself in Playgirl.

And, hey, see if Larry King has an open slot.

Sometimes you don’t have to do anything at all.

When Kim Kardashian was mentioned at a dinner party recently, everyone agreed that she was famous for something, although none of us could pinpoint exactly what it was. The best we could come up with was that she was something like Paris Hilton.

But I’m thankful that the Baby in the Subway incident turned out to have a happy ending. And I hope that’s exactly what it is.

An ending.

Contact D.L. Stewart at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.

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Too bad you are so cynical. Despite your critical views on these things, they bring about debate and get us focused on topics we should be talking about. Such as....never take your eyes or hands off your baby, don't own attractive nuisances such as swimming pools or fake flying saucers without making them secure, medical ethics, child exploitation. It is amazing how an entire nation can be talking about the same thing whether real or fake. There are many lessons to be learned.

Deb
2:27 PM, 11/4/2009

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