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Is It Fucking Creepy to Bring a Zoom Lens to Wing Bowl?

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jan 31st, 2014 · 6:02 PM EST

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YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT IT IS.

There’s a weird thing that happens with cameras at Wing Bowl. A dichotomy exists between the event floor and the stands. I feel out of place with my iPhone as a camera on the event floor, where eaters, entourages, assorted VIPs and other mongrels gather. It’s plenty sufficient, but there’s a huge difference between asking a potentially coked up 18-year-old stripper to pose for a picture when you’re a photographer carrying a $1,000 SLR and when you whip a cell phone out of your pocket, fiddle for the camera app, and countdown: “1, 2, 3! I’M WORKING. I SWEAR!”* You mean business with the real camera. You look like a creep with the cell phone.**

It’s the opposite in the stands. If you bring a high-powered camera with an extra long zoom lens, you might be someone who has to knock on neighbors doors when you move to a new town. My first Wing Bowl experience, in 2003, was highlighted by the guy in front of me – mid-40s-ish – who was wearing an Eagles helmet and screaming “SHOW YOUR TITS!” into a bullhorn. That’s the sort of guy who brings the zoom lens. And that’s the sort of guy who is locked in a darkroom tonight with seven boxes of tissues, a rope and a wedding dress. Don’t be that guy, Guy.

*I’m a three-counter. Always have been, always will be. If you don’t do it, you’re an asshole and people are blinking in your pictures.

**Wing Bowl is perhaps the only place on Earth where you’re encouraged to take pictures of the strippers with your cell phone. Not sure if that’s a positive or not.