Peep The Documentary
Mon May 25,
2009,
14:13 GMT
Posted by: Hal
Tags:
blogging,
surveillance,
exposure,
news,
personal,
peep-the-game,
peep-radio,
hals-life,
peep-the-documentary
Here’s a really interesting and well written article, complete with a healthy dose of snark and skepticism. The piece is called Are We All Big Brother Now? and, written by one of newspaper’s news reporters, a guy who spends plenty of time on the crime beat, it has a refreshing no nonsense look at the ideas I espouse in my book.
Here are two paragraphs from the piece:
As such, the flawed footage was typical of how CCTV plays out in major crimes, as a crucial but incomplete piece of the puzzle. But the other factors, especially the frantic speculation about the case on dedicated Facebook sites, also typify an emerging culture of democratized digital surveillance, in which security and entertainment have blurred into voyeurism, usually with the narcissistic consent of the surveilled.
This “Peep Culture,” according to Toronto author Hal Niedzviecki, is what happens when pop culture’s mass audience gains the tools to display themselves online as celebrities, with their private lives on enthusiastic display. But with time, it spreads beyond the time-passing frivolity of social networking into the most deadly serious corners of the culture.”
I liked the way this piece approached, without any sentimentality, the question of whether or not surveillance and self surveillance are worth the price that we ultimately have to pay as individuals and a society.
Comments: -4-, Add yours…
Tue Jul 28,
2009,
22:46 GMT
Posted by: Hal
Tags:
blogging,
surveillance,
exposure,
news,
personal,
privacy,
peep-the-game,
peep-radio,
hals-life,
peep-the-documentary
I’m on the plane to Los Angeles via Denver. Yesterday was a crazy day, trying to tie up loose ends, film my “reality tv casting tape” with director Sally, and find some time to work on/figure out the peep themed monologue I’m going to deliver Thursday night in Washington DC.
Didn’t get to bed till 1am and was up at 5:30, but other than that, I feel like I’m in decent shape going into this final stretch. In terms of filming, I’ve been feeling more at ease in front of the camera, probably because I’ve been in front of cameras 8 hours a day for the last week or so. I’m excited about tomorrow’s shoot on the set of the crazy Fox Reality show Solitary, which basically involves putting people in different kinds of solitary confinement and seeing how long they last. The winner gets a cash prize. The show mixes self inflicted sensory deprivation torture with classic reality tv peep: we get to know the people, peep into their regular lives to get a sense of their motivations, and are treated to constant juxtapositions of their everyday life and the extremity of their current situation. Also we’re going to sit down with David Lyle, the head of Fox Reality and the man behind such classic peep reality shows as The Swan. He’s also very funny and loquacious, so I’m sure we’ll have a great talk about all aspects of reality tv.
As much as possible, I’ll be continuing to broadcast live via peepcast. As soon as we get to LA we’re going to head over to Best Buy and grab a mobile internet stick that should let me pretty much lifecast from anywhere. But it might be difficult for me to lifecast and check the chat in some circumstances, so don’t get mad, I’m not ignoring you, I’ve just got my hands full. Anyway, subject to the agree-ability of the people we’re spending time with, you should be able to get a pretty good look at the action as it proceeds. Lifecasting while filming and being on the road will be, I think, very different from doing it home. For one thing, I’ll be able to be on more, fewer blackout periods when W. and the kid are around. For another, there will, arguably, be more action, less time watching me sitting in front of my computer. This phase of the lifecast will probably provide more of a sense of how the documentary is coming together, as opposed to a sense of how my life comes together (or comes apart, as the case may be). I’m relieved, actually, to take the show on the road. I’ve been getting frustrated with certain aspects of the lifecasting at home. That’s something I want to address, but I’m going to wait to do it on camera as a vlog.
So anyway, check the lifecast, my tweets (@halpen), and this space for ongoing updates. Here’s a schedule of what I’ll be up to. As much as possible I’ll be peepcasting!
Today: getting equipment, setting up. Wed.: Fox Reality on the set of Solitary. Wed. eve: fly to Washington DC. Thursday: two interviews, practice my talk that night, perform at 7:30 est (plus your opportunity to meet my mom!) Friday: 6am flight back to LA. Shooting various Hal-in-Hollywood footage! Saturday and Sunday: we spend the day with a casting director, attend a reality tv try-out, get a critique of my reality tv casting tape. Monday: homeward bound!
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Fri Jul 31,
2009,
20:55 GMT
Posted by: Hal
Tags:
blogging,
surveillance,
exposure,
news,
personal,
peep-the-game,
peep-radio,
hals-life,
peep-the-documentary
Okay, I’m on the last leg of my flight back to Los Angeles. I’ll fill you in on all that’s been happening so far, at least the highlights.
Got into LA Tuesday. Actually pretty hilarious arrival since director Sally and shoot assistant Melanie (aka “the Hotness”) managed to miss the connecting flight due to a sudden thirst for Jamba Juice. No damage done, they got the next flight and were only a few hours behind us and now I get to make fun of them constantly — “hey, anyone thirsty for some juice?”
Wed. morning we were off to an interview with David Lyle, the head of FoxReality. He’s an acerbic straight talking Australian — very very funny. I showed him the 2 minute casting tape I made, and he absolutely cracked us up critiquing what are apparently my many many flaws. We’ve got to get my casting video up online, that’s on my to do list today.
We had a great discussion with David about Reality TV. When we got around to talking about some of the negative consequences of Reality Tv – ie. distorting the shape of people’s lives for the sake of entertainment — things got particularly interesting. David maintains that while there is some distortion, you can’t turn, as he puts it, “a princess into a witch.” In other words, while certain events may be distorted, a person’s essential nature is at the core of the narrative, and that ultimately can’t be made up or manipulated. As for the ethical question of what a reality tv show creator’s responsibility is to the people they have on the show, well, David, again, asserted the hardly surprising idea that people sign up for this stuff and they know what they are getting into. And if they don’t, well, it’s nobody’s fault but their own.
Later on, we headed over to the set of Solitary, a Fox Reality show that was in production. Solitary is this show where they put contestants into solitary confinement pods and then subject them to various mental and physical trials — they call them “treatments”. Whoever lasts longest in their pod wins the 50k prize. It was fascinating to watch the producers of the show put the contestants through their paces. The control room was truly like a scene from The Truman Show. I got to chat with the producers who were pretty cool about having us invade their set. Sally thought I got a little too hung up on the whole torture aspect, but she wasn’t the one who ended up sitting on a torture chair made up of hundreds of blunt screws, while wearing a giant metal crown with more blunt screws pressing down into her frontal lobe. For the record, that was me. The producers compared the show to a sporting event and argued that it’s more like being part of a rigorous athletic challenge than being subjected to torture. They talked about the “triumph of the human spirit.”
Finally I got to go into one of the pods and experience Solitary. My sole companion was the computerized voice known as Val. I’m planning on doing a vlog at some point today on what I felt and learned from my time in the pod. Stay tuned.
After that, I took the red eye to Washington DC. I did two interviews there and a talk Thursday evening. Next morning, this morning, the 7am flight back to LA, which brings you up to date on my activities and whereabouts. I’m a bit groggy from the constant activity punctuated by lengthy plane rides. But I’m excited about the material we got at FoxReality — to their credit, they were totally cool about letting us film on the set and asking whatever questions we wanted. I was also really pleased about the reception the Peep event in DC got. Checked in with W. who reported an incident involving 3 year-olds and fecal matter (enough said) but otherwise seemed in good spirits. We’re both really looking forward to our upcoming holiday, about a week away. Normally the thought of going on a vacation annoys me — vacation from what exactly? is my usual line — but this time around, I’m ready for some serious chill out and family time. I’m sitting next to a little 4 year-old and her dad, so naturally I’m thinking of E. I wonder what she’ll make of this whole project in ten years. She’ll be a teenager and probably wish they’d left me locked in the pod.
Comments: -7-, Add yours…
Sun Nov 08,
2009,
14:33 GMT
Posted by: Hal
Tags:
blogging,
surveillance,
exposure,
news,
personal,
privacy,
peep-the-game,
peep-radio,
hals-life,
peep-the-documentary
There’s so much Peep culture in the daily news, I can barely read it all, let alone blog about it. And yet I know I should be doing a way better job of getting everything that’s happening out there onto the blog. But I just can’t keep up. I need an intern. An assistant. A nanny. A secretary. All those things. But that’s not going to happen so I just have to struggle on through info overload.
On Wednesday, November 4th, I woke up in Houston, Texas. At my hotel they were handing out the Wall Street Journal. I grabbed one to read on the flight home. (A rarity since I rarely read the print edition of any given newspaper.) In the section Personal Journal, I discovered not one, not two, but three Peep-related stories.
First, the lead story on the page: How Tough Times Yield Model Children.
This is basically a piece on how out of work parents are trying to land their kids modeling and acting jobs to make the family some money and, one suspects, give themselves a sense of purpose in the process. So let’s cut to the chase: the main source of employment for these kids (outside of modeling in clothing catalogues) are Reality TV shows. “Also contributing to the growing number of mini-models are reality-TV shows featuring children, agencies say. Such shows have transmitted the culture of fame-seeking; some shows—“Toddlers and Tiaras” and “Little Miss Perfect”—even follow the lives of child pageant contestants. Page Parkes Corp., a talent agency in Houston, Texas, is just one of the agencies seeing more interest from parents who want their children to be on television.” Uggh. What a loathsome trend. Children should not be on Reality TV. As I’ve argued in the book, they can’t possibly consent to having their everyday actions manipulated into entertainment. Putting them in that situation is disgusting. But with 10% of the population unemployed, and the perception that your life is just one more resource you can exploit to maintain your lifestyle, well, the allure of Peep culture continues to grow.
Next I read a story called Fitbit Sees How You Run, Walk and Sleep
This article introduced me to a whole array of devices I hadn’t heard of before. I’ll let the author of the article explain: “I’ve been testing Fitbit, a tiny $99 device with a motion-detecting sensor that, when worn, digitally records one’s distance (walking or running), calories burned and steps taken—as well as sleep patterns. The Fitbit wirelessly sends the data to its Web site, fitbit.com, for storing these minute-by-minute details. And the site has space where users add details like food and water consumption so it provides a more accurate picture of calories burned versus calories consumed.” Hopefully the connection to Peep is obvious: this is another way we can peep ourselves and, in cases where the sharing of your data profile is enabled, each other. What’s more entertaining then relentlessly tracking our every move, and comparing to others of similar age and physical condition? These kinds of devices are also another example of a new type of self-tracking device that conditions us to love surveillance. Another of the new location based devices that accumulates data about us in whole new ways, with our permission, but not necessarily with us fully coming to terms with the consequences of what we are doing. I know, I know, it’s just an exercise device — but it’s also fascinating data that employers, insurers, governments, and a wide range of corporations would kill to get their hands on. Our willingness to adopt these technologies is fascinating, frightening and very very Peep.
Finally, the third article to appear in the Journal on that pretty regular day of November 2009. The article was called The Greatest Generation (of Networkers) and explored the problem of educators trying to slow the tide of online connectivity in schools. It starts out telling the story of a 17 year old kid at Millwood High School in Halifax, Nova Scotia who is sent to the principal’s office after being caught texting in class. While the principal is reprimanding the teenager, his fingers are surreptiously moving in his lap: the kid is texting! The article quotes the principal next, who says: “It was a subconscious act, young people today are connected socially from the moment they open their eyes in the morning until they close their eyes at night. It’s compulsive.” A fascinating observation and one that I believe is true: The desire to peep and be peeped — often described as online socializing — is compulsive and addictive. Almost a quarter of today’s teens check Facebook more than 10 times a day, according to a 2009 survey by Common Sense Media.
We’re learning to love watching ourselves and each other so fast, I can barely keep up.
Comments: -2-, Add yours…
Thu Aug 19,
2010,
11:51 GMT
Posted by: Hal
Tags:
blogging,
surveillance,
exposure,
news,
personal,
peep-the-game,
peep-radio,
hals-life,
peep-the-documentary
Hey everyone, here’s a short piece I wrote for AOLnews about why, despite all the warnings about privacy online, we just can’t bring ourselves to care nearly as much as we should.
A taste: “Oh but haven’t recent polls demonstrated that we are more concerned than ever about our privacy online? Sure they have. But they have also shown that our concern doesn’t actually translate into action. We may tell pollsters we are concerned about our privacy, but we don’t actually do much about it. Surprisingly few of us can actually be bothered to adjust the privacy settings available to us. (A Pew Research Study put the number of us who change Facebook privacy settings in the 25 percent to 44 percent range, which is to say that not even half of us are motivated to protect our most intimate details by taking five minutes to click a few buttons.)”
Read in full:
Comments: -3-, Add yours…
