What’s Great About 7 Guys in the Desert, at a Camel Market, Watching the World Cup

• Humping the digital divide.

• TV is so… yesterday.

• Stanmeyer nailed it. To survive, a human needs food, water … and a good signal.

• In the online world, it’s called community.

• ISIS who?

• If nine out of ten such newswire photos exist to indulge the armchair fantasies of Western media consumers when it comes to visions of exotic lands and primitive peoples, the laptop — and the rush you get from even the postage stamp-size hit of FIFA intoxication — puts a serious kink in the cultural chauvinism.

• And along those lines, you’d think these guys from Daba (Saudi Arabia) would be watching either Middle East/N. Africa qualifiers Algeria or Iran, wouldn’t you? (Iran, to see them lose.) Well, they’re not. It’s Netherlands – Australia.

(photo: Mohamed Alhwaity/Reuters. caption: Men watch the 2014 World Cup Group B soccer match between the Netherlands and Australia on a laptop, at a camel market in Daba near Tabuk June 18, 2014.)