The primary function of social media appears to be a long, increasingly effective attempt to sum up the entirety of modern life in one picture.
Last week we had a man drinking a huge soda wearing a virtual reality headset, outdoors.
Today, a man ignoring a humpback whale to stare at his phone.
At least, that’s what appears to be happening. It’s obviously possible that he glanced down at it for a moment while the camera took the photo - or that he himself had just taken a picture of the whale, and glanced down to send it out to enhance his own personal brand.
That said, photographer Eric Smith who took the picture near Redondo Beach in California says he did ignore the whale.
"The whales were breaching off Redondo, and this small sailboat manoeuvred into the spot where the spout occurred... The guy never looked up from his phone throughout the entire breach. Two women at the front of the boat were taking pictures, but he didn't notice."
Even if that is true, part of us can't blame the chap involved. Whales have been around for millions of years. But that little box which contains access to every piece of entertainment, information and communications technology in existence? That's only been around for, like, ten years. Come on, whales. Raise your game.
We’ll likely never know what really happened. But what we know is that the world is one step closer to a definitive, single-picture explanation of why everything is falling to pieces.