“I always feel like somebody’s watching me”: On surveillance culture.

This past Sunday I had a client in my chair whose job is to work with various companies and corporations to help them get a foothold in the world of social networking as a way to expand the reach of their various businesses. In talking about her work, we discussed our usage of and simultaneous reticence around social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. During the course of our conversation we touched on the subject of applications like Foursquare that people use to let the world (or their social network) know where they are “checking in” – restaurants, bars, clubs, the gym, etc. She then informed me that Facebook had added a feature that automatically allows you to be “checked in” to places by friends and that you have to go find it and disable it or it can automatically inform anyone and everyone of your location at all times. And I found myself thinking, for the umpteenth time, why the fuck do people “check in” to places to begin with? It baffles me to no end. But I think it’s a symptom of something that’s been taking hold of us ever since the first season of The Real World reared its ugly head in 1992.

I was really resistant to reality TV for a very long time. I watched a little bit of the Real World when it first aired and it bored the crap out of me. I didn’t care about these random assholes and was far happier getting my entertainment from the realm of fiction and unreality. As the genre began to take over television programming like a virus, I would find myself tuning into some of the competition oriented shows like Project Runway or America’s Next Top Model, but really could not do the whole group-of-people-living/fighting/drinking/fucking-together scene at all. I don’t for a second think any of that makes me a better or more cultured person, don’t get me wrong. But at least there seemed to be some point to all of it – a prize or a chance to do something slightly cool with your life besides just being a complete dickwad on television. But even that world lost its luster for me and I find that I still prefer professional actors doing their job on the small screen in my apartment. I’d rather watch Buffy stake vampires or see Wonder Woman spin her way to truth and justice than watch a bunch of real people act like real morons. I find the enterprise of reality television stars to be one of the most loathsome cultural creations currently in existence. The fact that generations of kids are growing up wanting to be like the Kardashians or the kids on The Hills makes me weep for humanity at times. Or, at the very least, it makes me wish I had a lot of free time and skill to become a celeb-reality serial killer.

But lest you think I’m digressing, I see a direct connection between the explosion of “reality-based” (not enough air quotes for that, really) entertainment and the incessant need of so many folks to “check in”, “tweet” and otherwise over inform the world of their every move. Reality entertainment has totally distorted people’s sense of self-worth to the point where we all think we’re important enough, interesting enough and worthy enough of such constant attention. But look, I don’t even want to know a truly famous person just ate a sandwich or took a shit or walked into a restaurant unless one or all of those things somehow directly impact me.  And while I clearly like a certain amount of attention – I wouldn’t write a blog or be in a band or post the occasional self-indulgent photo of me in a cute outfit on Facebook if I didn’t – I don’t want people to know my every move and action every second of the day; that’s just some 1984 level shit that I am not down for. But is it just that so many folks are preparing themselves for their 15 minutes of reality TV fame or is it something else? Are we all just so worried that, as our next door neighbors become more recognized names than some award winning actors, if we don’t make our presence known as constantly as possible that we’ll be forgotten among the real regular people? Are we scared that “reality” will overshadow reality so we just sign up to be watched, to be totally stalker-enabled, so that we won’t fade into the distance of the unknown and the un-special? Is this our new way of trying to be recognized or make an impact? Will the future of memoirs just be a series of Facebook status updates, location check-ins and the most interesting of our Twitter entries, making the whole blog-to-book phenomenon (don’t get me started on that) seem like a quaint notion from a simpler time?

Yes, I realize that last statement could be gilding the lily a bit, but as much as I participate in elements of this culture, I am equally perplexed by it. I don’t know why anybody wants everybody to be able to access them all of the time. I don’t know why we bellow about privacy rights stripped away by things like The Patriot Act and then can’t let a single sneeze go uncatalogued. I know I am not coming up with any grand conclusions or answers here, but it is something that both fascinates and troubles me. I like a lot of what technology has given us. But I still love fiction and anonymity and secrets. I don’t want to wake up in a world where entertainment is simply the whole populace walking around with cameras pointed at us 24/7 while we all decide which person we want to watch that day. Because, if nothing more, most of us aren’t fucking exciting enough for that.