hal tweets ·1:04 PM
Indie comics in 80s LA, a homage featuring Groening, Panter, Hernandez bros…. http://bit.ly/b1FcGM
Exposure
2009,
14:21 GMT
Is it News or Peep? The Case of Baby Kaylee
Posted by: Hal
A baby is born with a malformed brain and has very little time to live. Her parents decide to donate her heart to another baby. They take the two month old off the respirator keeping her alive and wait. The baby breathes on her own, surviving for now but just barely.
It’s a sad story. But what kind of story is it exactly? Is it news or is it Peep culture? In other words, is this a story that we need to know about locally, nationally and even internationally? And if we do need to know this story, do we need to know every detail of how the parents are feeling hour by hour, day by day? Do we need to see the videos “Kaylee’s father on what comes next” (courtesy the Globe and Mail and CTV) and “the short life of baby Kaylee” (courtesy The Toronto Star)?
Remember we define Peep culture as a culture in which we no longer derive our entertainment from staged events, but from the lives of other “ordinary folks”. More and more, this is spilling over into not just what we consider to be newsworthy, but how newsworthy events are reported.
So is the Globe and Mail keeping us informed about the issues of the day when it offers us the aforementioned video, plus the stories “Baby’s father expresses his frustration”, “Ian Brown talks to Jason Wallace” (the father again), “Parents hope to bring her home”, and “In Pictures: Wallace family photos?” on the front page of its website?
“Crystal Vitelli kisses her two-month-old daughter Kaylee.” – a family photo that is part of the Globe and Mail pictorial.
How much do we need to know? How much do we deserve to see? What kind of cultural forces are at play when the newspaper editors don’t consider a story complete until it comes with pictorials, videos and fireside chats?
I leave you with this quote to consider: “Wednesday afternoon, in an exclusive private conversation with The Globe and Mail, as a throng of reporters and a forest of TV cameras waited outside the hospital for his next public appearance, the father of the baby that will not die described the tortured place he has been living since March 16, when Kaylee was admitted to Sick Kids.”
2009,
20:42 GMT
Further Discussion of Last Post: Facebook = TV 2.0
Posted by: Hal
A pretty interesting and healthy discussion broke out on my Facebook page yesterday, responding to my last blog post. I thought I’d reproduce it here and respond while I was at it. (My comments are new, added here, they didn’t appear in the original discussion.) And, hey, let’s keep this discussion going! I’m reprinting the comments in order, and using the initials of the commentators here, hopefully they’ll comment on the blog and identify themselves in full if they so wish. So here goes:
TD: I’m with you on many elements of your ‘peep’ thesis as presented thus far in other posts/forums, but “it’s still entertainment and distraction, not some newly evolved way to learn, connect and meaningfully interact” comes off as broad and gratuitous, a bit of overstatement for effect. For some types of use, you’re correct, but for others I’ve seen too much evidence to the contrary to agree completely. My ability to respond with the above, within the same medium, in context, inside an hour also does not remind me of television.
[Hal says: it’s a bit broad, true, and of course there are many exceptions but overall I’m sticking to my guns here: peep culture is replacing pop culture which means we’re deriving entertainment from watching other people’s lives, and FB is a big part of that. Does that mean that’s all we’re doing on FB and other peep sites? No. But it’s a big part of it and we have to acknowledge that. And interactive tv is already happening with more just around the corner as TV and Peep inevitably complete their merger.]
MS: The correlation between lower grades in TV-watching students and Facebook-ing students does not necessarily imply that the same factors can be attributed to the causality models. For example, both models most likely identify “distraction” as a factor that contributes to the effect of lower grades. But what are the other factors unique to the between Facebook and lower grades? I would suspect that they differ and that it would be quite interesting to analyze them on a deeper level. I think that a major divergence between TV and Facebook is the presentation of a narrative within a formally defined beginning and ending (even so-called “reality” shows are presented as such). Facebook is a never ending “narrative” that is not framed within any context. In addition, as TD points out, TV is passive (TV viewer) whereas Facebook is active (Facebook user). Therefore, the comparative influence of each medium on the grades of students’ must take these factors into account.
[agreed there’s plenty more to study. we’re still trying to figure out the effects of television watching on kids, let alone the rest of it. love your point, MS, about the fact that FB and peep are never ending, unlike tv which at least has nominal breakaway points. ergo: peep is more addictive and fascinating and obsessive!]
MM: Whether passive or active, one thing the two mediums have in common is the mass communication of meaningless drivel: on that point, Hal, you are spot on in your analysis.
[thanks MM. but I’m not sure it’s drivel, or always drivel: it’s people – all of us – using the techniques presented to us, ironically alienating mass media type techniques, to try and announce the fact that we exist, have opinions and feelings, aren’t just statistics and net worths.]
TD: That could be said of the Internet as a whole (vs. a specific comment on social networking behavior). In fact, is the bulk of Facebook use even “mass communication”?
[it is…it’s one person communicating to many. how many? depends on # of friends etc. and, yes, it can be said and has been said and will continue to be said that the bulk of the content on the Internet is drivel…]
RS: absolutely! maybe worse ...cause when ‘working’ on computer you can Facebook without even noticing (like now!) but I’d never go up and turn on the tv.
[so very true…social networking and peep break down barriers which, again, is why it’s all so addictive: you are twittering and you maybe aren’t even sure if you’re twittering for work or for yourself or both at the same time…]
MM: TD, I think Hal’s thesis is that both mediums are more about “mass entertainment” and “mass amusement” rather than “mass communication”.
TD: As I’ve said, I agree in part (if by “both mediums” you still mean social media in particular). But is “mass” anything (e.g., audiences) a prerequisite for ‘peep’ to function? Hal? I swear I see it play out on a much smaller scale all the time, just as I also see social network interactions that I can’t dismiss as detached/pointless amusement.
[i think that, yes, peep functions only on an ‘mass’ scale which is not too say that every blog post and twitter gets a mass audience, but that anything anywhere has the potential to become mass entertainment on a massive scale. the prerequisite for something to be part of peep culture is, in my mind, that potential. and, again, it’s not at pointless, and, as with television, there’s more to it than just entertainment, but no matter what happens, those other elements are always a by-product of entertainment]
MM: I still think Hal’s thesis is spot on. Think about it: ppl on FB surfing each other’s status statements like they used to change channels with their remote control, seeking (i.e. peeping) whatever entertains or amuses? Moreover, the social contact between FB friends (unless based offline in the first place, or an anachronism, at best) hardly ever rises above that of superficial. How much more akin to TV can a medium get anyway?
[I’m with mm here]
TD: That’s just not my experience with the medium. YMMV.
[thanks everyone, great conversation, let’s keep it going!]
2009,
18:18 GMT
Susan Boyle’s Got Peep
Posted by: Hal
So what’s the one thing we know about overnight Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle? What’s the one fact that resonates with all of us? Answer: It’s that she’s NEVER BEEN KISSED. This is the source of our fascination with her. We relate to this, it makes us feel better about ourselves - if she can make it, anyone can make it! The fact that she is homely just makes the story - her story - even better. If she was pretty, she’d be just another performer. The back story of her personal life would be typical and un-exciting. But here’s a person who is plain in every way, a person so plain she’s NEVER BEEN KISSED and yet now the whole world knows her name. That’s what we like about her, and that’s why she is really a great peep (as opposed to pop) culture figure.
Consider this piece in the Washington Post, one of many running all over the world. The piece goes out of its way to keep the myth alive. It paints a nice caricature of a lonely lovely lady – a Hollywood caricature in every possible way – except that it happens to be true. Boyle really is the youngest of nine children, she really is a 47 year-old unemployed, slightly chubby woman who’s never dated and never married and never been kissed, who lives alone with her cat, who, until recently, was the subject of mockery by the village youth.
Who is Susan Boyle and what goes on her mind and how is her insta-fame going to help or hinder her in the coming days and years? On that, the piece gives us nothing. But on the cliche of Susan Boyle, anti-celebrity celebrity for the Peep age, the article is resplendent with quote after quote from the towns people, all too willing to weigh in: “We’re all tired of 23-year-old models trying to sing on TV. Susan is a 47-year-old spinster who, by God, can sing,” Michael Nicolson, 64, the bingo caller at the community center where Boyle volunteers, tells us. “She’s an ordinary, run-of-the-mill lady,” says Joe Stronach, the bowling club office (whatever the hell a bowling club officer is). “She doesn’t have great looks, but God gave her a wonderful voice.” Susan Boyle’s Got PEEP baby! Boy does she ever.
The move from pop culture to peep culture opens the door to all kinds of insta-celebrity random moments. When you are deriving your entertainment from the lives of other ‘ordinary’ people, it doesn’t really matter what their talent necessarily is, what matters is that there’s a peep back story we can all buy into. In the case of the Spinster Songster, it’s not the song and the singing that interests and amuses us, it’s the folksy story, it’s the life that seems tailor made for reality tv and its many peep spin offs. They set her up to be a loser but she proved them wrong. And now the pudgy village spinster with the learning disability is crazy famous. She’s like a movie, only she’s real.
2009,
20:59 GMT
They Want to Watch Me Where I Pee Pee: Surveillance in Hal’s House
Posted by: Hal
On Friday the producers of the upcoming documentary based on my upcoming book dropped by along with a surveillance camera expert. They wandered around my house discussing the best places to put surveillance cameras. The plan is for there to be two weeks this summer when the camera streams will be live on the web for all to see. Meanwhile, I’ll be blogging and ruminating about what it’s like to live life in a fish bowl. And you’ll be posting comments about my bed head and absent minded propensity for nose picking when I think nobody else is around.
First Jennicam, then DotComGuy, and then…me? As the Peep Diaries book makes clear, despite my attempts to enter into the Peep world and reveal myself, I never quite managed to do it. Obviously, the documentary is going to take things a step further by, for instance, installing cameras in my house and broadcasting live to the web. Will I like this? I suspect it will be pretty annoying and I won’t like it all. But I think I’ll also like it quite a bit. Oh dear.
Anyway, there were a few tense moments, like when we got down to the nitty gritty and producer Jeannette started talking about cameras in the bedroom and bathroom. (You can read her more polite post about all this here.) At which point I had to remind her that W. had already announced that because of her work (she works in mental health) she cannot be actually seen on camera, and we’d have to obscure her face. This, I think, was a factor that Jeannette was hoping to just ignore until it was dropped. W. isn’t going to drop it, of course, so we needed a work-around. How can Hal be on camera 24/7 for two weeks, but not his wife (and his kid, for that matter?).
The answer: Hal moves into the basement. Yes, for two weeks this summer I’ll live in the basement. I’ll move my office down there (I work from home) I’ll sleep down there and there’s even going to be a bathroom cam to capture my doings in the basement bathroom (which already lacks a door anyway, so I’m used to that). And there’s got to be infrared, announced Jeanette. I want to see him while he sleeps!
In the end, Jeannette was happy to just monitor the basement and first floor and leave the upstairs to W. and the kid, especially when she found out how much each camera was going to cost. So everyone’s happy. Except, uh, me.
Anyway, it’s begun.
2009,
14:46 GMT
Peep is Recession Proof and Other Confessions from the Ranks of the Unemployed
Posted by: Hal
Peep is not only recession proof, like the movies and beer, it actually benefits from the recession. Here are the reasons why.
1) More time on social networks. We believe, rightly and wrongly and the jury is still out on this, that our social network can help us get a job. So, increasingly, the first thing we do when we get laid off is let everyone on FB, LinkedIn, etc. know ASAP, not to mention sending an array of Tweets and Text Messages to make sure everyone knows we are out there hunting for new employment. A recent article in the Orlando Sentinel starts: “Just minutes after she was laid off from her job earlier this month, Brittany Ward pulled out her cell phone and typed a short message. ‘Needs a job.’ Ward, a 23-year-old account manager at an Altamonte Springs marketing firm, hadn’t even told her family.” There’s a reason we’re sending tweets like there’s no tomorrow – because for a lot of us, there’s no tomorrow.
Here’s the aforementioned Brittany searching for a job via laptop.
2) Recession blogs! We have the time because we’re unemployed, we think getting our name out there is a good idea that might lead to a job offer (again, jury is out on that one) so we blog. Here are just some of the recession blogs I found. Pink Slips are the New Black, Laid off in NYC, Recently Laid Off, and Fired For Now etc. There’s even a recession cooking blog that has gone viral featuring the recipes of a 90 year old who survived the great depression. (Which, as far as I can tell, looks nothing like our current situation: Recession 09: I’m going to have to cut down on my Starbucks Skinny Mocha Latte until I get a new job. Great Depression: Can anyone spare a cup of coffee and a slice of stale bread? I haven’t eaten in a week.)
Much of this blog material is classic Peep. Here’s a little snippet from a post on Fired For Now about Mom telling her kids she’s been let go: “So when I lost my job, I felt a deep sense of shame in telling them the news. I felt like I had failed them. I wasn’t the parent they could be proud of. No child boasts about a parent who spends their days at home in sweat pants, on the phone and net in between reruns of Law and Order.”
3) Corporate Peep Predators. Yep, when the times are tough, the Peep predators are ready and waiting to take advantage of our misery. Ergo, Newsweek’s My Turn column is running a contest on Twitter: send them your “recession story” on Twitter and you’ll maybe win the right to actually publish an entire column in Newsweek about your misery. In the meantime, “All of the tweets will be streamed on Newsweek.com” for the general amusement of those with two much time on their hands, both in the office and lying around on the couch.
Still on the subject of weird and predatory and Peep-inspired, how about this news story about a coffee shop trying to entice people to keep spending their money on mocha lattes (see mini-rant above) by hiring only comely young ladies to serve the coffee in bikinis?
Meanwhile, the Dallas News reports gangbuster business at a stripper job fair in that hard hit city. Wow. The dead-pan article trumpeting the “jobless to topless” job fair makes it sound like stripping is basically the perfect solution for unemployed women with the appropriate skill set.
Finally, Fox has a new Reality TV show in the works (no word on air date yet) called Someone’s Gotta Go. The show pits employees against each other as small companies seek to down-size and the employees themselves have to decide who should get laid off. Thanks for making people losing their jobs fun Fox…and for proving once and for all that Peep is recession proof.
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...
Indie comics in 80s LA, a homage featuring Groening, Panter, Hernandez bros…. http://bit.ly/b1FcGM
Issue 47 (spring) is now completely ‘unlocked’ on the NEW Broken Pencil website. Web TV, Liz Worth on punk TO & more http://bit.ly/bXvQuP
Tag Cloud
Archive Months
July, 2010
June, 2010
April, 2010
March, 2010
February, 2010
January, 2010