Jon Novick - Hidden Camera

 

It is Friday night. I have had a long week at work. I am out at a bar, I am with my friends and I am on the dance floor. I am invincible, that I can weave through any human being and look very good doing it. Simultaneously, I have not drunk too much to the point where it limits my linguistic capability, so I am ready to say the right thing at the right time. Did I mention [whispers] I am single? [audience laughter] 

 

So, I am looking for somebody. I am looking for the right person, and there she is. I am doing my sultry thing. I am moving smooth as silk. I am talking clean as a kitchen countertop. She makes eyes with me, I make eyes with her, we start sauntering over to each other. She puts her hand on my hip. I put my hand on her hip. It is probably the greatest Friday night I have ever had. We are dancing. We are dancing. And then, I look over and there are four dudes laughing their asses off filming this interaction. I have achondroplastic dwarfism. And unfortunately, sometimes what that means is that I look very good on a Snapchat story or an Instagram story. And a lot of what I do can be made very easily into a spectacle, which is very unfortunate. 

 

Now, I am from a small town, Fishkill, New York. I grew up, same school, never moved. Everybody knew Jon has dwarfism. Achondroplasia means he is not great at sports, but he is a great guy. Very simple, very straightforward. Now, I moved down here, New York City, in 2013, population of 8.5 million people. I am immediately overwhelmed that, once again, I am very aware that I am a little person, that I have achondroplastic dwarfism. 

 

It reveals itself in all kinds of ways. First, I am very photogenic, apparently. People love taking pictures of me. People love taking videos of me. People like commenting on maybe the way I am walking, that I might waddle a little bit, or possibly the fact that I have got a lot of books in my backpack. So, it is like I am carrying my own body weight. And if I stop too short, I am going to fall over. Or, petting me, which is exactly what you think it is. It is frustrating and it is aggravating, and simultaneously, it is psychologically conditioning to the point that every time I wake up in the morning and go to work, and finish work and come home, I am incredibly aware of where I am, where you are, what you have and what you are doing with your phone. I become increasingly paranoid. 

 

I am looking for people. I am avoiding groups of people. I am so cognizant of the angle that you have your phone that if you tilt it toward me in the slightest bit, it is like you are holding a weapon and I am running away from you, because I cannot sacrifice six more hours thinking about what you might have done with that photo you might have taken. I am angry, and I am frustrated, and I am telling people, and I am wrapped up in this world that I do not understand, that I cannot feel good about myself, where I am living. And I am trying to convince myself that maybe it is not even real. Maybe it is in my head. Maybe this one thing happened this one time, and everything else has just been painted to fulfill the rest of the experience and I am trying to calm myself down.

 

I am coming out of work. I am on my phone. I'm trying to mind my own business. And then, I feel this whoosh of air go over me. I look up and I see a person running away from me. It takes me a second to realize that someone just jumped over me. I turn and I realize that someone else just filmed it. Now, I'm angry. I've been angry, but now I'm very angry, because I feel like I need to make an action. I need to do something. I have to do something. But what am I possibly going to do? I can't catch up to you. I can't fight you. If I yell anything else, that's going to be on camera. So, what am I supposed to do? I keep walking. I keep walking very slowly. I go. I pretend like nothing's happening. I'm trying not to give you any more satisfaction than you already have.

 

I go down the subway and I'm looking for a fight. I'm looking for someone to take out their camera. I'm looking for someone to make a comment, because I've done nothing for too long and I'm done doing nothing. But I do nothing, until I get home and I decide that I'm going to show everyone what happens. I'm going to convince myself that I'm not paranoid, that these instances are accurate and I'm going to document it. I'm going to make a film about my own experiences in New York City. So, I do. 

 

I was fortunate enough to get a hidden camera from DCTV, a place I was working at the time. I walked around and I captured, frankly, what I thought I would. People taking pictures of me, people shouting random things that, frankly, maybe that was what I wasn't expecting. Ranging from, "Hey, short stuff," and verbatim walking in Times Square, "Hey, it's a midget." But I captured it all and I put it together and it felt good. It felt good. It felt honest. It felt like a good way of exerting, a positive way of exerting energy that at least I could feel confident about. I feel like I'm in control of. 

 

So, I finish it up, I edit it up, I upload it online, and I feel good. I share it with a few friends. And honestly, I'm feeling a little bit better about my whole experience. At the time, I was working as a freelance videographer. I end up going out of town and way out of town. Like, I don't have any cell service, I don't have any laptop service. I come back after a few days and I am informed that my video has been shared by a few friends, been shared by a few more friends and eventually posted on the front page of Reddit and now has approximately 750,000 views and growing. 

 

You remember in high school when you felt really passionate about something and you wrote it down in poetry and you felt really good about it, but then you hid it under your bed and you never talk about it now? Imagine if somebody went under your bed, took it, and literally showed it to 750,000 people. [audience laughter] Then a million people. Then 1.5 million people. I'm shuddering. I take out my phone. My phone explodes with every single person I've ever met saying, "I saw your video, I saw your video." Plus, “Some news organizations who want to do interviews.”

 

And then, life starts to change. I start to meet my neighbors. My neighbors come out of the woodwork saying, "Hey, Jon, it's so good to meet you. Let me know if you need anything." "Hey, Jon, I didn't know that happened to you. That's really frustrating. I'm so sorry to hear that." "Hey, Jon, if anybody ever bothers you, we'll take care of them. [audience laughter] You just let us know and we'll take care of them." Very, very nice people. Very, very nice things. Honestly, positive things. I get to meet my neighbors. I get to meet more people. 

 

And in the lieu of it all, 1 million, 2 million, 3 million. I finally decide to do something that everyone recommends you should never do. I read the comments. And honestly, they were great. Like, one person didn't like my earring. [audience laughter] But people saying similar things. "Hey, Jon, I really appreciate you sharing your perspective." "Wow, I had no idea about, you know, that this could be seen as offensive or frustrating or having to go through that day after day." 

 

And also, more importantly, people like me. People who were little people, who had dwarfism, people who had other kinds of disabilities saying, "I really appreciate you making this, because I know exactly what that feels like and I really appreciate being able to share this and do this and show this to other people to say, like, ‘This needs to change. This needs to stop.’" And it felt good. It felt really good. That was five years ago. And I'm still here. And frankly, I love it here. I live in Queens. I have no reason, Queens, Queens. [audience laughter] I don't think I have any reason to leave anytime soon. 

 

I feel a whole lot better about my morning commute. I really feel like I met people. I got to know the city. I got to feel like I was at home here. You know, I met my neighbors. I met an incredible woman who I'm living with right now. [audience cheers] 

 

And four-year anniversary coming up in February, we recently did something, a huge step in the relationship. We adopted a cat. [audience laughter] Great cat. But honestly, I'm really happy. And if I look back on this entire experience, it was really something. I feel really at home here. But frankly, if we boil it all down, I got really angry. I made something I was proud of and I shot it into the void of the internet and I got back a very simple, very concrete response. Thank you for sharing. Thank you.