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The Broccoli Tree: A Parable

2018-03-06 · story · John · 3:54 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube · mode: Personal essay

Retelling, in the second person, how a Swedish photographer's Instagram pictures made a lakeside 'Broccoli Tree' the social internet's most famous tree until someone sawed it down in 2017, John argues that to share something is to risk losing it, but hoarding what we love still loses it, only alone; the tree is gone but its beauty survives.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The Broccoli Tree parable: from a commuter's Instagram photo in 2013 to the internet's most famous tree, sawed down in September 2017

  • ★★ A photographer who passes a broccoli-shaped tree near Lake Vättern on his commute posts an iPhone picture of it to Instagram in spring 2013; 43 people like it. — 00:00:20 · Instagram
  • ★ That November he posts the tree with the old quote 'You don't take a picture, you make a picture'; it gets 107 likes. — 00:00:42 · Instagram
  • ★★ By April 2014 he gives the tree its own Instagram; its audience grows into the thousands and in summer 2015 he exhibits his photographs at the tree itself. — 00:00:52 · Instagram
  • ★★ A Broccoli Tree calendar and prints sell worldwide; by 2016 the tree is famous, a tourist destination findable on Google Maps and Street View. — 00:01:21
  • ★★ Sharing the tree so widely made it belong less to the photographer and his friends, but John calls it amazing that so many people saw the photographs. — 00:01:46
  • ★★ The Broccoli Tree account has over 27,000 Instagram followers, making it the social internet's single most famous tree. — 00:01:59 · Instagram
  • ★★★ On September 27, 2017 the photographer finds the tree sawed; he posts that you cannot unsaw a tree, and a few days later the tree is gone. — 00:02:12 · Instagram

00:02:37 — To share something is to risk losing it, but hoarding loses it alone; the tree's beauty survives

  • ★★★ You love something, share it, many love it too, and one or a few people cut it down; given enough time such people will always cut down such trees. — 00:02:37
  • ★★ The Joshua tree from U2's album cover and the sacred golden spruce in British Columbia are gone; the oldest tree, a 5,000-year-old bristlecone pine in California, is kept secret. — 00:02:49

  • ★★★ John: to share something is to risk losing it, especially when sharing happens at tremendous scale and everyone wants to be noticed, even for cutting down a beloved tree. — 00:03:05

    “To share something is to risk losing it.”

  • ★★ Had the photographer never photographed it, the tree might still be there on his commute, shading the real people who live by the lake. (hedged) — 00:03:15

  • ★★★ But the faraway people who loved the pictures were real too, and took shelter under the tree's canopy as well, even if only virtually. — 00:03:26
  • ★★★ If we hoard and hide what we love we can still lose it; only then we are alone in the loss. — 00:03:35

  • ★★★ You can't unsaw a tree, but you can't unsee one either: the Broccoli Tree is gone, but its beauty survives. — 00:03:42

    “You can't un-saw a tree, but you can't un-see one either.”

In the description and comments

  • ★ The description credits Seth Radley with producing, editing and inspiring the video, and thanks Patrik Svedberg for photographing the Broccoli Tree and for rights to his images. — video description

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Broccoli Tree

Also: Works: The Joshua Tree

Organizations: Instagram

Groups: U2

Concepts: digital dualism

Places: British Columbia · California · Kiidk'yaas · Sweden · Vättern

Products: Google Maps · iPhone

Only in the description or credits: Patrik Svedberg · Seth Radley

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