hal tweets ·8:56 AM
New updates on the Broken Pencil site: Dani Couture profile, Melanie Miller story, zine and poetry revs and more. http://bit.ly/cHweBh
2010,
15:17 GMT
Las Vegas TV Explores Surveillance Society with Hal
Posted by: Hal
LasVegasNow.com recently did a special segment on Living in the Surveillance Society. I comment throughout. You can read the article and watch the two 4 minute videos here. It’s well done and their conclusion is important, if slightly vague – “Users sacrifice privacy, getting the power of the Internet in return.” What I wonder is if “users” even see giving up privacy as a “sacrifice”? And what, exactly, do they (we) get in return?
2010,
15:06 GMT
Peep Doc - Shooting (Faking) Again
Posted by: Hal
Hey everyone, we’re down in my basement all day today shooting what’s called “pick-up” shots for Peep Me – the Peep Culture documentary. Basically we’re going back and “recreating” or you might even say “faking” shots we now realize we need, but didn’t get the first time around. We’ve just spent the last hour trying to recreate the look below, which is a frame from the movie shot in the summer.
Once we get it just right (though my hair is a bit shorter, can’t do much about that) I’m mostly going to be pretending to be seeing things on my computer that I’ve already seen. We need more shots of me reacting to things to use as connecting scenes in the doc. I’ve written about the fake/real of the process of the doc shoot before, like the time they made me take out the trash about 10 times. At least it was garbage day!
2010,
12:58 GMT
Peep in the News: Location Sharing and “Super-Sized” Mom
Posted by: Hal
From the New York Times: an article on the rise of online location sharing. The new thing is Foursquare, which lets you check-in at a location and share with “friends”. That’s opposed to the Google Lattitude model which just constantly broadcasts your location once you’ve enabled the service on your smart phone. This phenomenon is, of course, an offshoot of Peep – these services are sold as lifestyle enhancers, basically a value added component to your social networking online persona. (Look for Facebook and Twitter to introduce location based services soon…) Yelp, for instance, is using it to give more validity to certain reviews – if you’ve “checked in” and proven you were there, your review is apparently going to have more credibility. In other words, pay more attention to this particular person: they’re really real and they’ve proved it.
Now let’s check in with Donna Simpson. An article on her (which is itself Peep since it has no other redeeming factor beyond providing us with entertainment based on someone else’s everyday life) documents the quest of this already very obese woman to reach 1,000 pounds. She’s already in the Guiness World Record books as “the world’s fattest mother.” My favourite peep detail: she finances her $750 a week grocery bill by eating fast food online in front of men with a plus-sized woman fetish.
Comes complete with nice Peep pic of mom using scooter to shop with her kid!
2010,
19:50 GMT
Mommy Bloggers Go to Corporate Boot Camp
Posted by: Hal
This piece in the New York Times talks about how mommy blogging is being infiltrated by corporate giveaways, ads, and sponsorships. Though it doesn’t get into the whole issue of using your kid’s life to develop your brand, it does have some eye popping stats about how many women are writing and reading mommy blogs.
Page 1 of 1 ||
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
New updates on the Broken Pencil site: Dani Couture profile, Melanie Miller story, zine and poetry revs and more. http://bit.ly/cHweBh
A short piece I wrote for AOLnews about why Peep culture trumps privacy online. http://bit.ly/bQECsC
Tag Cloud
Archive Months
August, 2010
July, 2010
June, 2010
April, 2010
March, 2010
February, 2010
Track him below…