hal tweets ·7:42 AM
A short piece I wrote for AOLnews about why Peep culture trumps privacy online. http://bit.ly/bQECsC
Msm
2008,
17:45 GMT
Gawk This: Emily Gould Learns the Art of Peep
Posted by: Hal
Okay it’s a little late and nobody cares anymore, but what the hell. Here’s my take on the whole Emily Gould/NewYork Times/Gawker/blogger “scandal.”
So Emily Gould obviously knew that she was overstepping boundaries of privacy and proprietary when she was blogging about private matters involving other people’s lives without their consent. She was clearly doing it to advance her career and persona, and admits as much in her New York Times essay on her life as a blogger, when she talks about inserting personal asides into Gawker posts as a way to draw attention to her writing and get more hits. This is actually pretty common strategy these days: As a reporter notes in a piece on people blogging their divorces: “For some ex-spouses, revenge is not the point. Writing about divorce can be good for readership.” This theory is affirmed by one Penelope Trunk, the author of the Brazen Careerist blog, who has spent quite a bit of time writing about the demise of her 15 year marriage. “The bloggers who are doing the best are those who are injecting their personal lives,” she notes, presumably meaning that the value of your product – your story as told by you – is enhanced by scandal and tragedy so why hold back?
Let’s put this in context: A Pew American Life/Internet Project reports that 1 in 10 adult Americans has a blog. At the same time, another study by Fernanda Viegas out of M.I.T. interviewed nearly 500 bloggers and found that more than a third of the respondents said they had ‘‘gotten in trouble’‘ for material posted on their blog. Another third said that they knew other bloggers who had gotten into trouble with family and friends. Bloggers who admitted to frequently writing about ‘‘highly personal materials’‘ got into the most trouble most frequently. As one mournful fellow explaining, ‘‘I lost a prospective girlfriend, who found that I’d blogged a brief amount about our date.’‘ Nearly two-thirds of the bloggers Viegas interviewed said that they rarely asked permission before using other people’s real names, though they apparently “became more sensitive to the importance of using pseudonyms after their friends and family objected.”
In the era of the persona-product that at once reaffirms the new ideal of the celebrity while challenging the faltering morality of community, it’s harder and harder to know where to draw the line. Emily Gould is the poster girl for this. A former Gawker editor whose series of blogs – anonymous and not – set off a tit-for-tat article/blog frenzy when a former boyfriend wrote about her writing about him on her blog in the New York Post’s Page Six Magazine. This prompted her to write about him writing about her in the New York Times Magazine. At this point, perhaps sensing how ridiculous and embarrassing all this must seem to the casual observor, Gould then ended the article by announcing that she has learned her lesson. Hence, she now finds herself “doing something unexpected: keeping the personal details of my current life to myself.”
Of course, this has to be taken with a grain of salt since, obviously, by writing the article she is again revealing the personal details of her life, and promoting her blog (which is still going) and making money. Plus, as countless other blogs have pointed out (themselves only too happy to jump on the bandwagon and, like me, keep this story alive), Gould continues to blog on Gawker and elsewhere. All of which is to suggest a more complicated, less flattering truth about lessons learned in the age of the persona-blog-product: what Gould has learned isn’t that she needs to stop using her real life to make money and enhance her profile (even at the expense of others). What she’s learned is that she needs to carefully manage her revelations for maximum profit and exposure. Her cover story in the New York Times Magazine is a great example of her new, cannier, management style.
Finally, New York Observor Media Mob columnist Matt Haber notes in a column that Gawker, supposedly on the recieving end of Gould’s realization that gossip blogging isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, loved the entire ride. “Gawker’s first post officially linked to Ms. Gould’s Times Magazine story received 9,133 views and 170 comments. A follow-up post c
locked in at 8,814 views with 149 comments, while a post announcing comments had closed on NYTimes.com received only 4,150 views and 83 comments. Sadly, another, about the article’s photos, topped out at only 2,556 views and 55 comments. Finally, it seemed, for Gawker, the horse had been kicked to death.”
2008,
0:44 GMT
Max Mosley and UK's anti-Peep law
Posted by: Hal
It’s anti-Peep, not pro-privacy. That’s my take on the news that Max Mosley, Formula One boss who sued the Daily News after they paid a prostitute to hide a camera in her bra while she took part in his bondage and domination orgy, has won a judgment in the case.
Why do I say anti-Peep? Because what the judge essentially says in the ruling is that, to quote the New York Times, “the ‘unconventional’ behavior that tabloid journalists in Britain have regularly chronicled among certain celebrities — adultery, for example, or visiting a prostitute — would have to involve, in the future, some element of criminality, or activity conflicting starkly with the public image fostered by the individuals involved.”
In other words, you can Peep, but only in the public interest. This isn’t a resounding defence of the right to privacy, it’s a reigning in and defining of the right to Peep. The two are not the same thing. One says, paying someone to sneak a camera into a private orgy that breaks no laws is okay so long as you find out, for instance, that it’s a NAZI-themed orgy, which is, presumably news because Mosely is the son of famously fascist parents and a major public figure. But if he’s just doing a regular old spanking orgy, well, then, the public doesn’t need to know about that. So in that case, you should just forget all about the camera you snuck into the orgy. It’s not that you shouldn’t have snuck in the camera, it’s that having failed to record sufficiently smutty and shocking material, you should have deleted the pictures and forgotten all about it.
A strange, twisted bit of law making that says more about the age of Peep culture than it does privacy.
Mosley after court, surrounded by reporters.
The original Daily News front page.
2008,
14:46 GMT
WebCam in the Car
Posted by: Hal
Great piece in the Washington Post today about a pilot project that looks at how installing webcams in the cars of teenage drivers might reduce accidents and unsafe behaviour. Of course, what's fascinating is what else it might do -- condition young people to accept that they should be watched all the time every time lest they hurt themselves or someone else.
2008,
14:48 GMT
Hal in the New York Times Magazine
Posted by: Hal
Hi everyone…I’ve got a piece in the New York Times Magazine that comes out tomorrow. It’s already online here. It’s my formal write-up of the Failed Facebook Party. Give it a read and let me know what you think! Best, Hal.
ps – pick up the Sunday Times on your way to Canzine, and you can tell me what you think in person! I’ll be there all day, from 1-7.
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.
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...
A short piece I wrote for AOLnews about why Peep culture trumps privacy online. http://bit.ly/bQECsC
New content on the Broken Pencil website! Short fiction: Shack the Clam Girl + How to Make Your Own Game Cabinet http://bit.ly/b6CHLP
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