About the Many Virtual NYC Marathon YouTube Videos

Back on November 3rd the 2024 edition of the New York City Marathon happened, complete with its 50 thousand-plus entrants and the meandering course covering all of the Big Apple's five boroughs...in many ways it has become the most sought after long distance running event, even more than the Boston Marathon.  For a year or two I've enjoyed watching point-of-view YouTube videos recorded by some of the runners, lasting the entire race.  Some runners were fast, some average and there was one excessively slow dude.  Each video revealed some of that runner's personality and background while also showing their experiences as they ran past exuberant, cheering crowds.  For the most part, I like these videos and even exercise to them at home.  But three weeks ago, one of the marathon runners, Matt Choi...who is one of those social media "influencers" who earn money making themselves visible while promoting their sponsors' products...was permanently banned from all New York City races because he violated their rules by having cyclists in the midst of the crowded race, filming him from different angles while interfering with and endangering other runners.  I know that if I were such a runner, having gone through the difficult process of just getting accepted to run the race, then paying the expensive entry fee and making arrangements for staying up there...and then struggling to complete the event...I would have been put out and insulted by this one person acting as if I was "in the way" of his own entitled project.  And apparently the New York Road Runners, the organizers of this race and many others in the area, agreed when they banned Choi.  The incident got me to thinking about all those videos...I've found about nine so far...showing the race and all those other runners alongside them.  Usually the videos show what it would be like from a runner's viewpoint, showing what lies ahead and with the backs of the runners ahead of them on the course.  I'm fine with that, but a couple of the video recorders have a tendency to move their cameras to face backwards, behind themselves showing the faces and numbered bibs of the other racers.  I know that were I in such a race, I definitely would NOT like someone with a camera set on me without my permission...yet these people seem clueless about any such potential objection from others.  This virtual filming of races seems to be a male phenomenon. I have yet to see such a video produced for the NYC Marathon...or any other race shown this way on YouTube, for that matter...by a woman: I wonder if this means anything.  The NYC rule-makers clearly prohibit certain kinds of devices for runners to film the race, yet one of them clearly was violating it (he was one of those panning behind him for stretches of time).   I for one enjoy this vicarious type of racing experience I can do from my own living room, giving me a sense of the race environment and surrounding locale.  But it kind of makes me cringe to see the camera pointed for lengths of time at people who clearly had not assented to it.  On one level, it's a major public event, but on another, there are some privacy issues not being properly addressed...