LIFE OF RECAPTCHA PHOTOGRAPHER

Life as a reCAPTCHA photographer is not always calamari and Pokémon Go.

“Pick only the fire hydrants,” or “Select all images containing chimneys.” The line between human and robot fades more and more every year. Both are getting harder to fool. I fight the good fight to keep that line between robots and humans distinctly etched in the sand. But friends, the high tide nears.

My name is Daniel Craig and I am from Springfield, Illinois, the largest city in Sangamon County. I was not always from the largest city in Sangamon County, you see. I was once a wee sprout hanging on for dear life in Illinois Amish Country, just outside the village of Arthur. The winters were hard for a family of six. Some nights we would sleep eight to a bed just to keep warm. My father, Granger, was a devastatingly handsome first-generation Amish furniture maker who fled Chicago amidst the Digital Revolution in the 1980s.

Once an accomplished painter of pedestrian traffic lines, now a hollow shell of a man struggling to sell chairs. Granger was driven out by fear of the introduction of automatic line striping machines that operated with a precision that could not be matched. He left behind his car, his VHS collection and his ability to help foster a child’s sense of self-worth. The only keepsakes he took were a disposable camera and a blurry, unframed picture of the last crosswalk he ever painted.

To me, this photograph was a portal into another reality. Maybe a reality in which I could find love? Grainy, out of focus. Initially, I could hardly tell what the photograph was. I just knew it was somewhere I belonged; far away from the village of Arthur. Granger took notice of my lust for photographs and hid all the cameras in the house. He instilled a fear inside of me. A fear of self-expression and a fear of robots.

But my love for photography was stronger than his fear. Life in Arthur was better lived through my viewfinder. Unfortunately, creativity is not valued in the slightest within the Amish community. I was promptly enrolled in the School for the Gifted and Challenged. They never disclosed which of the two you were but regardless, I was awarded Special Boy of the Month on four separate occasions in primary school. It was time the world knew I was a special boy. No longer could I be imprisoned by this family, plagued by the hauntings of their past.

One crisp fall morning, I woke before the sunrise, snatched the camera and left Arthur. One buggy, two eager hitchhikers and a shot of Penicillin later, I found myself in Springfield in the Fall of 1998. I have not looked back since, for I do not know from which direction I came.

The early days were spent photographing this new world I found myself in. What passersby saw as humdrum objects on the street, I looked upon with astonishment. This is when I met Aurelia. It was in the following spring that my love for her sprung. We would binge dope and listen to Love Shack by The B-52’s. I no longer needed my camera to serve as a conduit for a more promising reality. For a short while, I felt something that could not be captured through my lens.

Late one night, we were logging into a streaming platform to watch the ESPY Awards when it happened. I clutched my weighted blanket, sobbing as I watched her repeatedly fail to select the pictures of a stop sign whilst completing a reCAPTCHA test. “You seemed so human,” I said to myself, “it felt so real.”

Granger always told me, “All is fair in love and war.” I think I get it now.

After reporting her to the authorities, I immediately introduced a reCAPTCHA test on all my dating apps. Let me warn you, there are a lot of robots in my area. I am getting virtually zero matches.

That was then and this is now. Years later and I am wired differently. I have a trained eye for the mundane. I now understand that chimneys, fire hydrants, traffic lights, crosswalks and stop signs are the last line of defense between us and them. As the war wages on, the enemy’s weaponry evolves. I am in the trenches, navigating the battlefield’s ever-blurring lines. The sound of my camera’s shutter reverberates around my room at night like gunfire. But I have new weaponry, too. It could be images of broken glass bottles, or human penises, or non-human penises, or a still frame of TV’s own Tony Shaloub.

I still carry around the trauma of Aurelia with me. I often struggle to live life beyond my camera lens. I find myself isolating more. I even stopped donating to homeless shelters last year, as I was making less money and the food was not very good. On my darkest days, I putz around in my Toyota Corolla listening to Love Shack radio on my iPhone speakers amplified by my front cupholders.

I am desperate for someone to reCAPTCHA this broken heart of mine.

I have so much love to give. I am famous in specific niche circles around my office park and I drive a new-ish Toyota Corolla. No criminal record; I have not once been caught. You will be safe with me. Security is my top priority, right in front of never getting caught. I do not want kids. I made a pact with God that the line ends with me. But I am open to large rodents or a small, rodent-sized dog or even a cat with rodent tendencies.

I am desperate. You see, love is the very thing that makes us human. I need love to survive in this world and the next. For if I am not capable of being loved, how can I separate myself from the robots I am battling.

The next time you log into your banking app, sign in on OnlyFans or buy something from Target, I will be there to make sure you are not a robot. There is a man behind those pictures. If you happen to come across Daniel Craig on your data app, swipe right and select all images of me.