Vemödalen: The Fear That Everything Has Already Been Done

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a compendium of invented words written by John Koenig. Each original definition aims to fill a hole in the language—to give a name to emotions we all might experience but don’t yet have a word for. Follow the project, give feedback, suggest an emotion you need a word for, or just tell me about your day.

ETYMOLOGY: From Swedish vemod, "tender sadness, pensive melancholy" + Vemdalen, the name of a Swedish town. Swedish place names are the source of IKEA's product names—the original metaphor for this idea was that these clichéd photos are a kind of prefabricated furniture that you happen to have built yourself. As a side note, the umlaut isn't proper Swedish, but I liked the idea of a little astonished face (ö) sitting in the middle of the word.

TRANSCRIPT

Vemödalen.

You are unique. And there are seven billion others, just as unique as you. Each of us is different, with some new angle on the world. But what does it mean if the lives we’re busy shaping by hand, all end up looking the same—easily replaced by a thousand identical others?

So we all spread out, looking for scraps of frontier, trying to capture something special, something personal. As if we’re afraid of being captured ourselves—so quickly pegged for exactly what we are—so easily mistaken for someone ordinary, just like everyone else.

It should be a comfort that we’re not so different, that our perspectives so neatly align, that these same images keep showing up, again and again. It’s alright if we tell the same jokes we’ve all heard before, it’s alright if we keep remaking the same movies. it’s alright if we keep saying the same phrases to each other, as if they had never been said before.

‘The powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.’ You and I and seven billion others will leave our mark on this world we’ve inherited. But if, in the end, we find ourselves with nothing left to say, nothing new to add, idly tracing outlines left by others long ago, it will be as if we weren’t here at all.

This too has been said many times before. ‘The powerful play goes on.’ But when you get your cue, you say your line.

[obscuresorrows]

This idea came to me in Turkey. I was on a tour of this ancient underground city in Cappadocia, and after taking a few poorly lit photos of the haunting chambers, I decided I could skip the snapshots and just buy a book of postcards later. What's the difference whether I took them, if the subject was the same? So then, a photo is basically like an IKEA product, a kind of prefabricated piece of art that you happened to have assembled yourself. But then I thought...suppose my camera fell into the ocean on the way home. How many photos from this trip could I replace with one of a thousand identical others I found online? I mean, is there any point in anyone taking another picture of the moon, or the Taj Mahal, or a sparrow? Really, the only irreplaceable photos would be of the faces of people I know—which means, for all their indulgences, selfies are at least pointed in the right direction.

[jamiemccreath]

"Originality is the art of concealing your sources." - Benjamin Franklin

[allxtarmusic]

I've discovered this channel only 30 minutes ago, and I still cannot understand how brilliant an entity has to be in order to make a grown man cry profusely for 29 of those. I've read millions of words in prose and poetry, and this might as well be the first instance in which I become deeply moved by language. Thank you sir, whoever u are

[obscuresorrows]

THE MAKING OF: You would not believe how many weeks this episode took to make. Piecing together the work of almost 500 different people, making sure they had the right copyright status, lining them up frame by frame to match the beat. Adding subtle shifts, like the expanding iris, the lift of Mary's head, and of course the sunset. But actually, the most time-consuming part was having to follow blind alleys, in which I found dozens of photos of a subject, but they were too visually varied to fit together. In order for this rapid-fire effect to work, the subjects need to be nearly identical, but they also need to have a prominent foreground element AND be shot from almost the same angle. Which means there were dozens of photos of crowds taking snapshots of the Mona Lisa that I couldn't use simply because they were shot from the wrong angle.

So then, here are the "deleted scenes": a teenager doing a flip on a beach; a girl tossing her long hair back in a meadow; a closeup of red lips; "___ was here" graffiti; a scuba diver doing the OK hand signal; the tunnel of torii gates in Kyoto; the field of white gravestones in a national cemetery; someone drawing from a cigarette while wearing aviators; an African mother in a shawl looking concerned; an Indian man with a white mustache and red turban; groups posing at the summit signpost of Mt. Kilimanjaro; and, of course, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil. 

[JThePlante]

OMG I always have this feeling anytime I get creative thoughts!
"Someone must have already done this."

[obscuresorrows]

Imagine what the world would be like if every time we took a photo of something, it left a visible outline of the photo frame around it. How many cities and coasts would look like bird's nests. How many women would build up photographic haloes over time. The faces of kids and the backs of homeless people. How you'd find frames surrounding rare birds in the middle of nowhere, and give up birdwatching entirely. You'd have to see a beautiful sunset become scribbled over on the way down, as if it was a football replay. Visible frames would be the worst kind of pollution, and would drain most of the fun out of life—I think a lot of joy has the idea of discovery secretly buried in it somewhere. 

[lazyclaus]

I wish that "the dictionary of obscure sorrows" was a book

[obscuresorrows]

For an earlier version of this project I made a video montage of people taking photos. It's a weird sight, their faces mashed up behind their cameras, eyes squinted shut like a kid playing Hide and Seek trying to hide by covering their eyes. It makes you think about the word "viewfinder" and what it implies. Maybe in the end we run around taking photos to give each of our lives some focus. To see the black on the edge of the viewfinder. To step into the comfort of a dark room with a tiny window, that lets us shut out most of the world, and choose one thing from a billion others, and pretend—for a split second—that's everything there is. 

[mikeoxmells-grim]

These videos make me depressed in a good way.

[SaschaTee]

Always remember you are unique, just like everybody else...

An oddly terrifying video. Nicely done.

[ShyGuyXXL]

This is what I sometimes feel when trying to create new, interesting and creative stories, characters, locations, etc. for new pictures, comics or video games.
So many times do I realize midway through, "Wait... this is really similar to this other thing that has already been done." And in the fear of seeming like a copycat I discard them again and start from scratch. This sometimes results in my ideas having to become even more outlandish and random to the point where they just seem ridiculous. :/
And even when I DO create something completely original I always have this nagging feeling in the back of my head that tells me "What if there IS something extremely similar out there that you're not aware of and if you release it into the public you will look like a rip-off and people will accuse you of stealing ideas!"

[DeFens]

This makes me depressed but not the kind of sad depressed but the thinking depressed. It made me realize that in the grand scheme of things we are nothing. One in 7 billion, a letter in a newspaper, a drop in an ocean. We will be ancient history in a few thousand years. People will look back at us and scoff. History will remember only 1 in 10, 000 of us. we will be forgotten and I find it depressing to think that we won't be able to make a mark in the world as it seems all have been taken. History has a reputation of repeating itself and I guess we will have to follow its rules.

[George.Redacted]

John, I remember interviewing you about your process and how you came to create the dictionary. Your work is truly awe-inspring. Thank you for the value you create through these obvious, yet esoteric experiences we haven't yet abstracted enough to use in normal conversation. You're a BOSS!

[remonbasu]

I've seen the worst of the worst there exists in this world
Lost dear ones
And yet held back tears and absorbed it all inside
And you make my eyes numb with videos like this
Even if you heard this before,
Thank you.

[ericray]

I thought I'd clicked on some crap click-bait, but this was a surprising little treat of a video. Got me expounding on a philosophical theme of the day I've been pondering about how important every little difference we all have as humans is.

[harlemsar]

This is as beautiful as a wildfire, scary, deep, is the first time i have ever felt poetry.... i just want to go now, exit my office, go to a library and find meaning in the words, warm in the thougts of someone

[darias.]

this is stunning! I love everything about this video. (there's this book, by T. Mann, 'Joseph and His Brothers', and it talks about the repetitiveness of lives at length, but in a more positive context. it explains that for centuries all lives followed the same paths and were so completely identical that different people were viewed as the same person simply because they shared a common role: the younger brother, the loved wife, the slave and so on. you knew your path from very early on and had no choice but to follow it. in doing so you became something more than an individual - an archetype - but lost your identity. I find it both beautiful and horrible, in equal measures.)

[TheGullimonster]

"That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse"
Love that movie.
This channel is full of silience :).

[GOrdonGREENleaf]

This is a thought provoking and well executed video. Thank you.  For me, though, I prefer to think that time makes everything unique. Everything may have been said and done before, but never was it done and said by you, that unique individual that you are, or in that moment which will never repeat itself, or in that particular light or shadow or angle. Our journey as souls have meaning to a greater 'information cloud' than anything man made. I can't prove any of this, any more than you can disprove it. But I choose to believe it because it is better for this life's journey to live with hope and love and peace, than it is to immerse ourselves in self sabotage and hopelessness. We are similar, but we are not the same.

[JohnBender]

I watched and loved this video so many years ago. I watched them all after. I fell in love with the channel. I missed you when you left....

Today, on Christmas, someone gave me a book. It was yours. It was the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. I was immediately struck with happy tears in my eyes. The reasons they gave it to me were clear. They said they always liked that I liked linguistics and etymology and words. So they thought that i might like a different kind of Dictionary. God, were they right. I've only read about 20 pages so far but it might be my favorite present ever. Because it seemed so insanely unlikely it would end up in my hands.

Thank you for everything and Merry Christmas.