Step Right Up and Be the Next Social Media Trainwreck!
Y’know, we love trainwrecks in this country.
Just another Saturday afternoon in the 19th Century
Back in the 1880s and 90s, they used to take a couple of old locomotives and run ‘em head-on into each other for the pure entertainment value. One sunny day in 1896, up in West, Texas, some genius did just that. Thousands came out for the spectacle and paid $2/ticket; Ringling Brothers put up tents to make an impromptu town (called “Crush,” after the guy who staged it all). The two locomotives bore down on each other and hit head-on at 45 mph apiece. The boilers exploded, sending huge chunks of hot metal flying for hundreds of yards. Two were killed outright, and many more were injured. Wow…now who coulda seen that coming?
It’s not that different now, it’s just that we’re interested in a different sort of trainwreck:
Lindsay, resting her eyes
Uhm?
Jon and Kate, give me a break
Whether it’s looped Lindsey, bald Britney or fixin’-to-split Jon and Kate, we can’t seem to take our eyes off of a pageant of self-destruction. It all kinda started in the Nineties, with a President whose every move was fodder for supermarket tabloid, until the tabloid press set the whole tone for his term in office (hey, he also set a whole new bar for philandering politicos).
Gov. Sanford, your story is juicier than a romance novel
It’s a given that if you attain celeb status, you start living in a goldfish bowl and your privacy is pretty well a thing of the past. But with the advent of reality shows, now “celeb status” is apparently a lot easier to come by, and the line between public and private life has become much less distinct.
It seems like that has seeped across society and skewed people’s ideas of what it takes to become a celebrity…not talent, not brains, sometimes not even looks. You don’t have to land on the moon, come back a war hero and ride in an open Cadillac to applause and ticker tape, you don’t have to sing or play an instrument or dance or be especially clever. You just need a willingness to bare all and put it right out there for everyone.
Sometimes it’s pretty funny, like on www.textsfromlastnight.com:
- (919): i literally forgot his name and just started calling him “waffles”
- (267): Dude it was awful. I woke up with more strippers in my dorm room than those duke lacrosse kids.
- (647): Michelle found a bong in the garbage and sold it to my mom
- (848): a woman just threw her tv out the window while screaming “will you fucking work now?”. i’m never moving
OK, I laughed out loud on that last one.
Who're you thinkin' about, Mr. Ensign?
Sometimes it’s just kind of tiresome… if I’m hangin out on Facebook, I don’t really need to know that you just came back from the grocery store with some broccoli and are now sitting down to enjoy a grilled cheese sandwich. I’m not transfixed by your thumbs-up-or-down on national health care, or what serial killer you are, or what muscle car you are, or who your top five favorite NFL stars are…
Sometimes it’s sad or disturbing…just have a look at YouTube and the freakshows in various corners. Yeesh. This young woman’s kind of a mess:
Or you might remember this guy from a year or so ago. Wouldn’t surprise me if he winds up with his own reality show one of these days…or maybe that ship already sailed.
These had to hurt:
In the end it’s all pointing in the same direction. Behavior that would have been considered “behind closed doors” stuff even ten years ago is right out there in public now, for the big photo album that is the Internets. Anybody can come up and scrawl anything they want on that big, big blackboard. That’s part of the beauty of the Internet, don’t get me wrong. But it’s the combination of anonymity and the pathological need for attention on the part of some folks that is just a little unnerving.
Some years back, people started saying “Whooaaaa, too much information,” which quickly went from pop-culture cliche to the “TMI” phenomenon. Now TMI is not only the norm, it’s what’s expected. So think before you post it. Does everybody really need to know about every last aspect of your world, your habits, your day-to-day webcam-webcasted actualities in intimate detail?
You probably won’t wind up on a reality show anyway, and if you do, well, here’s hoping it doesn’t wreck your life in the process.
I agree, and on the down-side, it’s starting to have it’s negative effects. Some people are raised by their parents’ failed achievements (britney, jean-benet Ramsey) and are bred to *believe* their lives really are more important than anyone elses, and in the the case of Britney can cause some seriously strange behavior.
I love your posting.
Quite agree with you. I always think people should have some privacy and hold on some secrets by them. Now search engine looks very useful, but maybe only some years later, like you said, people will say “too much information”. Too much freedom maybe is not a good thing, too.
Appreciate the thoughts, you too. It should be interesting to see as we get more used to having such outlets as twitter and youtube around if the general public begins to change their ways and show a little more self-censorship. You get the idea that some people are just a little trigger happy these days.
You’re absolutely right on the button! I often frequent Twitter and it’s becoming a joke. Who cares if a guy has just knocked at your door… get of your butt and answer it, instead of tweeting about it! (a small example, I could go on…)
Quite agree with you. I always think people should have some privacy and hold on some secrets by them. Now search engine looks very useful, but maybe only some years later, like you said, people will say “too much information”. Too much freedom maybe is not a good thing, too.