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Indie comics in 80s LA, a homage featuring Groening, Panter, Hernandez bros…. http://bit.ly/b1FcGM
Exposure
2008,
13:10 GMT
Back Alley PeepCam: "Tuesday Morning Rain" comes with Great Peep Story
Posted by: Hal
A great comment by reader Mark McCawley of Edmonton. I’m reposting here so that more people can enjoy this fabulous Peep story. Perfect thing to accompany today’s pic of my back alley in the rain, courtesy Hal’s back alley PeepCam.
Mark Writes: “Funny thing happened a few nights back while I was reading an anthology I am to review. It was a little after 2AM and while taking a break sipping my coffee and gazing out my fourth floor flat’s 10 foot by 5 foot window which overlooks a deserted downtown Edmonton parking lot, what do I witness? A sports car enters the parking lot, and parks in the middle of the lot under one of the streetlamps. Out of the sports car emerge a man and a woman: the man in a black tuxedo, the woman in what I could make out was a purple satin dress; they had obviously just come from some high brow affair. In the man’s right hand: a camera attached to a very large lens. Next thing I know, the woman crawls up onto the hood of the sports car, yanks up her purple satin dress, her legs spread eagled for her male companion to photograph. This all took place in the span of about 40 to 45 seconds. Voyeurism? Exhibitionism? The point? Even in an empty downtown parking lot at 2AM, somebody is watching.”
Back Alley September 30th: Tuesday Morning Rain
2008,
17:28 GMT
Let Lori Go: The Sad, Strange Case of Megan Meier
Posted by: Hal
So the case of Megan Meier, the 13 year old teenager who killed herself after she thought a hot boy on MySpace had dumped her, is now before the courts. On trial for fraud is Lori Drew, the mother of Megan’s schoolmate. Drew is accused of being the mastermind, along with her daughter and an older teen, of a scheme to impersonate a hot boy interested in Megan. Since Drew was the only adult in the room throughout this whole thing, she’s the one on trial.
Drew is charged with, get this, “conspiracy and three counts of accessing a computer without authorization via interstate commerce to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.”
There’s a lot to be disturbed about in this trial. First of all, just the facts on the ground. Meier hung herself after a final message was sent to her via the fake boy’s MySpace account. The message said: “The world would be a better place without you.” But we’ve now found out that Megan responded to that message, writing back: “You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over.”
We can imagine the two girls and one woman giggling at Megan’s pain. Obviously the case is a testament to the dangers of social networking, especially for the emotionally vulnerable teen set. When people hide behind fake profiles they more easily forget that there are real human beings somewhere at the end of all the wires. When people derive entertainment from the travails of another person’s life – their own personal reality tv show – they dehumanize and depersonalize and, again, they forget that there are real people out there somewhere.
At the same time, is Lori Drew a criminal? She is guilty of using incredibly bad judgment, there’s no question of that. But we live in a Peep society. People put fake profiles up all the time. People constantly pretend to be things they are not. People regularly derive their fun by viewing the pain of others. Sanctioning Drew feels right, but at the end of the day probably doesn’t make much sense. In the age of Peep, identities are malleable and just about everything one does online is potentially someone else’s LOL moment. Unless the US government is planning to start arresting every pretender on the Internet, this is a case of punishing a horrific outcome, as opposed to trying to understand the underlying reasons why such a horrible thing occurred in the first place.
On the left: Lori Drew. On the right (in the dress): Megan Meier’s mother.
2008,
18:30 GMT
We're On Our Own: Who To Blame for Online Suicide?
Posted by: Hal
While a judge considers dropping the charges against Lori Drew police will no doubt be looking to lay new charges in a separate case, the suicide of a 19 year old teenager live online. Another tragic incident, another case of people using the Internet to amuse themselves at the expense of someone else who ultimately takes his or her own life.
The particulars in this case basically involve a young man swallowing all kinds of medication until he lapses into a coma. 185 people watch online via streaming service Justin.tv, attracted to his life feed via a posting he leaves on a body building forum. (Incidentally, I have a very interesting interview with Justin in the Peep Diaries done right after he stopped being the main attraction on the site and opened it up to other people who wanted to “lifestream.”) Eventually the police are called. Even as they break down the door and cover the webcam, the peanut gallery online is chatting and arguing whether or not the whole thing is staged. Here are some quotes:
Quote: if you put full screen on you can tell its not a still pic but why isnt his top moving as he breathes
Quote: um guise. . he looks like hes not breathing
Quote: desperate cry for attention….log off his stupid jtv site…. you’re just making this retard act out worse than he would otherwise.
So who to blame this time? Basically this is the dark side of our emerging Peep Culture. If we’re going to make the unmediated watching of other people a big part of our entertainment culture, then we’re going to have things like this happen fairly regularly. Even after the poor guy is gone, he will continue to provide “entertainment value” online. Consider this forum which discusses his death, provides his online suicide note, and links to the video (which has now been removed officially but I’d be surprised if you couldn’t find it pretty quickly).
So are people doing things they wouldn’t otherwise do because they know they are being watched? There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that people are, increasingly, acting in extreme or violent ways in order to create YouTube clips. So there’s reason to suggest that someone might be more inclined to commit suicide because of the potential for their act to become spectacle. In which case, we wonder: What is the responsibility of those watching? There are so many faked videos out there that it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between real or acted. It’s pretty much impossible to put the onus on the watcher, who is always passive, always anonymous, always somewhere else. And I don’t think anybody wants the authorities to come in and start regulating the Internet the way they do television, assigning ratings and basically turning live TV into an utterly bland experience.
So it comes back to the core reality that Peep Culture reinforces: Even in the age of so-called interactive digital culture, even in the age of online community, we’re on our own. We have more freedom than any human beings have ever had before, but with that freedom comes more confusion, more desperation, more watching of others to see what they’re doing.
The scene on Justin.TV as the police arrive too late to save a young man broadcasting his suicide online.
2008,
17:58 GMT
Overshare is New Word of the Year
Posted by: Hal
Hey everyone, I just found out - while having a pitch be turned down by a magazine editor - that "overshare" has been named word of the year by Webster's.
As they write:
overshare (verb): to divulge excessive personal information, as in a blog or broadcast interview, prompting reactions ranging from alarmed discomfort to approval.
Wow! Peep culture now has an offical verb! Below is the video Webster's released on YouTube and elsewhere in an attempt to overshare their selection of overshare as the word of the year.
2009,
23:43 GMT
Idiotic Double Peep News of the Day: Mindless Puffery About Bristol Palin’s Ex Boyfriend
Posted by: Hal
I was going to do a high minded post today and claim that all week I’d be looking at different incarnations of Peep Art. But, well, how about we do that next week? In the meantime, how about some idiotic double Peep action? Remember we defined the double Peep here as the phenomenon by which the original Peep gets peeped by the media.
Good example on the Huffington Post today. And it comes with a poll! So here’s the title: “Levi Johnston’s Sister Mercede Tattoos His Name On Her Wrist…What Would You Do? (POLL, VIDEO)” The “piece” basically says that Levi Johnston (who you might remember as the dude who knocked up Sarah Palin’s daughter and got grandfatherly props from John McCain before being inevitably dumped by Sarah Palin’s daughter…and how do we know all this? Because we live in a Peep Culture!) so anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Johnston, according to Huffington which has the video to prove it, was on the Tyra Banks show with his sister (who we care about because?) when the sister revealed she has her brother’s name tattooed on his wrist (which we care about because?).
Now observe how Huffington tries to take this meaningless bit of double Peep puffery and make it matter to us — they further extend the peep by turning it into a poll. Is Levi’s sister weird? YOU decide!
In this way, peep extends its pull and allure. Everything, ultimately, is all about how you feel and react. This isn’t about the Johnstons (who we care about because?): It’s about you! Part of why Peep culture is so enticing generally is exactly because of the way the it always seems to come back around to ways we can interject ourselves into the story by, yes, allowing ourselves to be Peeped. It’s all so scary and addictive.
So I’m going to run my own poll: Is a poll asking if Levi’s sister is weird weird? YOU decide!
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
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