And all around him, people took pictures and video. They had To Make Sure They Got This.

Murray was being trailed by a professional camera crew with professional sound equipment, and anybody who knew who Bill Murray was or why that particular location was significant would have known that the event was being amply covered, and they could see it on TV or YouTube soon, probably that very same night, looking and sounding better than whatever they could produce on the fly. But everyone still had to have their own personal record, even though in half of it you probably wouldn't be able to tell what's going on, with the camera swerving all over the place, recording the backs of other people's heads as they, too, Made Sure They Got This: "Here's video of Bill Murray in Times Square yesterday. The first 20 seconds you can't really tell what's going on because I'm running, but it gets a little better, and at the 45-second mark, you can kind of see his face."

They took pictures of Murray as he burst through the doors. They continued taking pictures as he sprinted towards Times Square. Murray held out his hands as he ran, asking for high-fives; he got a few, but mostly from guys who first made sure they were capturing the moment on their phones. The more people Murray passed, the more phones got whipped out. I gotta call you back, Bill Murray just ran past me and asked me to sing with him, I gotta make sure I get this!

Bill Murray was essentially being followed by, and then surrounded by, cameras that happened to have people attached to them.

One guy reacted to cake-covered Bill Murray reaching out a hand to him by checking his cell phone, to make sure he was getting this, and then reciprocated.

We've become a one-handed species. We keep one hand in reserve for taking out a wallet, digging in a purse, swiping a Metrocard, helping up a person who's fallen on the sidewalk, whatever. The other hand is for Making Sure We Got This.

Vine or it didn't happen. Pictures or it didn't happen. Video or it didn't happen. We say that as a joke, but it's not a joke. Unless we generated a picture or video clip that we can share, life might as well have not happened to us.