“If I can get Sandy to the summit, I’ll
bet she’ll be on TV talk shows. Do you think she will include me in her fame
and fanfare?” (178)
Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air
Into Thin Air recounts the disastrous
expedition to Everest that Jon Krakauer along with three other climbing teams
undertook in 1996. Krakauer was initially asked to join Rob Hall’s team going
to Everest as a reporter for Outside Magazine. His journalistic function
on the team demonstrates the growing interest of mass audience for extreme
adventure narratives. Although Krakauer himself is a journalist, Into Thin
Air doesn’t fail to criticize the influence that new media has on
mountaineering. This nonfiction narrative is a direct testimony of the impact
that social media has on the public’s perception of mountaineering. Krakauer
further reminds us of the importance that social media has on its audience as
he recounts Fischer’s comment on Sandy Pittman: “if I can get Sandy to the
summit, I’ll bet she’ll be on TV talk shows. Do you think she will include me
in her frame and fanfare?” [1]
Fischer’s desire to be mentioned on social media platforms testifies of the
shift that is occurring in the mountaineering world. Expeditions to Everest
have become accessible to anyone with the means to afford such an expensive
journey.
Katie Ives and Gwen Cameron in an article for the Alpinist believe that the commercialization of mountaineering such as the one described in Into Thin Air is a direct result of our current need to over-share information. They write: “we live in a society that has become increasingly noisy and glaringly bright (…) Viewers are inundated with images in which the most obvious “extreme” and photogenic elements have been heightened for quick consumption.”[2] The cybernetic age has made information easily accessible and mainly has created a shift in our way of processing information. Mountaineering is one example of the effect of social media on its audience. Our perception of space has been transformed as we now can access information with the click of a button, “distance is erased as minute details of remote adventures are broadcast into our homes.”[3] The new ways in which the information is shared has thus created a shift in our way of thinking. The commercialization of mountaineering and its growing popularity demonstrates how new media has tricked us into thinking that mountaineering is easily accessible to the armchair adventurer. We are blinded by the glossy pictures and heroic recollections of events and thus have lost our ability to discern the copy from its original. Easily accessible information has impacted our interaction with space.
[1]
Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the
Mount Everest Disaster. New York: Anchor, 1999. Print.
[2] Ives, Katie, and Gwen Cameron.
"American Climber Charlie Porter Dies in Punta Arenas." Alpinist
Newswire RSS. N.p., 26 Feb. 2014. Web.
<http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web14w/newswire-charlie-porter-dies>.
[3]
Ibid.
