Monday, May 09, 2005
ivenster.com: A new frontier for voyeurism
A little while ago I was invited to register for a new facebook-cum planner website called iventster. The idea behind this site is for students on campus to inform registered ivenster students of their events. One very strange component of this site is the ability to freely look at "funny pictures taken at events on your campus." I hope I never find myself wasting my time looking at pictures o my drunk peers on ivenster, which seems to be following in the footsteps of websites like thefacebook and friendster and in peoples' posting of their digital photos for public viewing, all tools of voyeurism. As someone who has often felt moments of voyeur's remorse, I wish sites like ivenster didn't exist. In this vein, I leave you all with a quote I am reminded of from Rear Window, a film that dissects voyeurism "We've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change."
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2 comments:
Hurray for Rear Window! That movie hit our culture right-on. Also consider Webshots, and how people just search for drunken party pics - - - why, why, why bother? They're just dumb pics of people hanging out...why don't YOU go do something? I mean, guys have no exuse - it's not porn...it's just dumb pics of glassy-eyed partiers holding red plastic cups. What's so exciting about seeing endless arrays of that?!? Nothing. Everybody should go outside and play.
Note: This does not exclude the wonderful value of using such instruments for the purposes of stalking people you know....that is a-ok!
Yes, I totally agree, and therein lies my own contradiction: I hate that I like stalking people via the internet, but it's so easy to do. When I catch myself about to embark on something completely ridiculous, like your example of looking at Webshots photos of random people, I stop myself. Still, all this reminds me of the survey I recall hearing about where American people were asked if they thought an administration of the death penalty should be televised, and if it was, would they watch it. A majority of people said that it shouldn't be televised but if it was, a majority would watch. If it's there, people are tempted to peak.
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