hal tweets ·7:42 AM
A short piece I wrote for AOLnews about why Peep culture trumps privacy online. http://bit.ly/bQECsC
Reality Tv
2009,
18:55 GMT
Back in Action in 2009: Hal's new Macy's wardrobe, Adventures in Translation and JohnTV
Posted by: Hal
Okay I'm back and I'm blogging. I spent the holidays with W. and E. in the suburbs of Maryland. There are a lot of stores there. A lot of them. A good place to visit if anyone wants to ponder just how it is possible that people get sucked into spending so much more than they actually have. Speaking of which, we bought a whole bunch of new clothes. Macy's was having a sale. Hey, a man's gotta look good, right?
The visit was pretty decent. My mom watched the kid a lot which let me do what I like to do best: sleep in. When I wasn't sleeping I was doing something else I'm partial to: drinking beer. Also went to a hockey game (Capitals versus Leafs, Caps won of course, go Caps!), saw two movies - Slum Dog Millionaire and The Reader - both at this giant movie theatre on the edge of a fake lake built beside a weird fake town made up entirely of stores and restaurants (condos surround but do not intrude). Anyway, you get the idea.
So, while I was gone two articles popped up that mention my work - both in different languages. One appeared in La Presse (a Quebec paper) and one appeared in a Mexican newspaper. I posted the link to the La Presse article on Facebook and requested a translation of the article and promptly got two sent to me. I posted them to my FB page, so if you want to see them friend me. Today I posted the piece in Spanish, so hopefully someone either here or on FB will translate that one for me too!
Pic on JohnTV with the caption:
"This could be you. Would it be worth it?"
So the piece in French by Mario Roy is about pride and its spill over into pseudo-nonconformity ie. the idea that we are trying to be different just so we can proudly proclaim that we are different. It got me thinking about the roots of Peep Culture. Is it pride or insecurity that causes us to reveal so much about ourselves? It's probably a little of both.
While in DC I watched a bit too much cable on Dad's giant - and I do mean giant - recently acquired HD big screen tv. One of the shows consisted of Shocking Videos. They featured the work of Brian Bates, "Oklahoma's Video Vigilante" who takes great pride in videoing prostitutes and johns in the act and posting the ensuing footage to his website Johntv.com.
Obviously the fact that he does this, and that his videos are all over cable as well, is indicative of the rise of Peep - in which we derive entertainment from other people's 'real' lives. But there's something else here, the zeal with which Bates pursues his subjects, and the pride he takes when he is featured on TV. You can argue that the videos posted to YouTube via his website serve to advance his stated aim of battling prostitution in Oklahoma City, but when they are put on TV, they become entertainment, and the only thing they advance is his pride. (I should add here that at least one of the videos posted to YouTube from Johntv.com come with advertisments from YouTube that say: "Hookup With Sexy Asians.")
Here's a sample of the work of Brian Bates.
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.
2009,
5:34 GMT
fake vs. real: sally and hal chill out in LA
Posted by: Hal
So driving around Hollywood with documentary director Sally…contemplating the Spiderman and Superman guys trolling the walk of fame. We started talking about the permeable nature of reality. What’s real anymore? I sent a tweet about how I couldn’t decide if I should get my picture taken with the tattered looking Spiderman or the very un-frightening looking Friday the 13th Jason. Someone answered: It’s not the real Spiderman. Which naturally gives rise to the question: Is there a real Spiderman?
Anyway, we started talking about the documentary in progress. Sally told me that a lot of the stuff we filmed so far (see previous posts here and here) seemed fake. I pointed out that since a lot of the stuff we’d been doing was actually recreated, derivated from reality, it was inevitable that it wouldn’t seem real. I mean, I really did get my first cell phone, but the cell was brought to the store and we then pretended like I was consulting the guy at the store about which one to buy, which of course I wasn’t.
I said if we’re making reality television, then we can get away with that kind of stuff, but if we want to get deeper, then we have to stop recreating. Sally’s worried about the narrative, about the story being cohesive. But I think that’s not going to matter much if it all comes off as faked.
The more we discussed it, the more we found common ground. We’ve got an important social phenomenon to investigate. Let’s just get out there and try things and see what happens.
We drove up the hills above Los Angeles and contemplated the city down below. Glittering and elusive, neither of us is quite ready to go Hollywood.
2009,
18:00 GMT
The Curse of Reality TV
Posted by: Hal
The Curse of Reality TV – the New York Daily News has put together a delicious slide show showing all the couples who had their relationships and marriages end after (or while) being on reality tv. A little eye candy for ya.
jon and kate…carmen and dave…spencer and brody…so sad…
2009,
11:39 GMT
Frustrating Review in the San Francisco Chronicle
Posted by: Hal
This is an interesting, if frustrating, review of The Peep Diaries: the reviewer doesn’t seem to like the book, and relies primarily on sweeping statements that dismiss my arguments. I would have liked more specifics, from the real world and from my book, to have been raised by way of demonstrating why I am wrong about just about everything. For instance, the reviewer’s most damning accusation is this: “Why we want so desperately to give up privacy mostly eludes Niedzviecki.” Okay then, how exactly does it elude me, and why are we do desperate to give up privacy? What follows reads like a kind of riddle:
“Why we want so desperately to give up privacy mostly eludes Niedzviecki. The line between exercising individuality or surrendering it is blurry. Liberalism thrives on people’s desire for split personas. We might as well question fiction, diaries and intimate letters. Self-expression merges reality and fiction. This discomforts Niedzviecki, who makes a fetish of ‘the real.’ Questioning the reality of the self is a starting point for likewise questioning religion, nation and history. One of Niedzviecki’s subjects, who let his life be distorted (edited?) for reality TV, likens it to torture. But Peep culture denizens voluntarily give up privacy. Art is driven by the urge for commonality, even as the audience is uncertain (Niedzviecki is torn by this paradox).”
Lots of interesting stuff to think about and parse in there, but it’s all generalization, nothing specific, nothing substantive. I like the questioning tone, I just don’t like the sweeping pronouncements.
Any responses and thoughts people?
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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