Bygone bylines

In the first few weeks of my last year of undergrad, I had to make a choice.  A choice, that is, about what “kind” of journalism I’d ultimately want to practice.  I chose magazine-oriented print journalism and… narrative nonfiction.  In my narrative nonfiction workshops (led by genre veteran Stephen Kimber), we talked about all the things we weren’t allowed to discuss in my other classes; the focus, at last, was on style (not just substance).  We read Capote, Thompson, Wolfe, Didion, Mailer—journalists who took all sorts of risks with their stories—with style and substance (and substances). And on several occasions, we found ourselves arguing about truth, half-truths, white lies, real lies, and the reliability of our narrators.  As our final assignment, we were asked to write our own narrative nonfiction story.

As someone interested, equally, in fact and fiction, I found this task daunting. Every time I typed a truthful sentence, I couldn’t help but imagine its fictional counterpart.  Did it really matter if I wrote that my interviewee was wearing green mittens—not red leather gloves?  Did it actually make a difference if I mentioned our interview took place at a Mom and Pop coffee shop—not some seedy bar?  Ultimately, I learned that it wasn’t easy to practice what I’d so righteously preached in class.  But my name—and reputation—was attached to that story.  And I couldn’t bring myself to meddle with the details.

Today, it’s not uncommon to read stories that don’t have names attached to them.  At least, this is often the case online.  The Joan Didions and Tom Wolfes of the World Wide Web use pseudonyms and cryptic blogger IDs.   And their respondents (blog commenters) follow suit.  True, some bloggers do reveal their identities (like everyone does at Torontoist), but I’m wondering what you think about those who don’t.  If a “real name” isn’t attached to an article—can this story still be truthful?  As it possible to consider these pseudonymed narrators reliable?

The Web Hath No Fury Like a Blogger Scorned

[Disclaimer: I wrote this article a few months ago... and it was published by Torontoist. So if you think you've seen this before, you very well might have.  Steven: I apologize for making you relive this—again.]

Several years ago, Steven May did what any heartbroken, web-savvy individual would do: he blogged. Why throw gravel at your ex-girlfriend’s window, or leave groveling “Iloveyou” [sniffle] “Imissyou” [honk] “Canwepleasepleasepleasegetback— tooooo—” [voice crack] “—gether?” messages on her answering machine when you could just as easily get her attention by broadcasting your woes on the web? But May never really intended for his ex-girlfriend (and ex-girlfriend’s friends, and ex-girlfriend’s friends-of-friends) to see his post-breakup blog. Really—he just needed to get a few things off his chest. Although May’s reactions were “virtual,” the ramifications of his online grievances were real; he received a phone call from his ex-girlfriend, asking him to stop blogging about their breakup. “She thought it was an invasion of her privacy,” says May, “even though I never used her name, or posted her photo. But a friend of hers had directed her to something I’d written online, and she asked me to stop.”

A few years later, May saw the potential for many more breaches of privacy in a (then) relatively new social networking site. Enter: Facebook. “When I saw Facebook really taking off in 2006 or 2007, I kept thinking that this was going to be a real mess in terms of online privacy. I’d already learned the hard way about the impact of user-generated content—I already knew that something that you create, that’s spur-of-the-moment, can be up there forever.”

So May, who calls himself “a bit of a veteran when it comes to writing stupid stuff online,” enrolled in Ryerson’s Master of Arts in Media Production program. In lieu of writing a thesis, May created Weekend Pictures, a website devoted to online harm-reduction.

“We only change our behaviour online, or thinking about the impact of our sharing online, when something bad happens. People just don’t seem to be realizing that everything is aggregated, saved, stored. As Dr. Greg Elmer [May’s project supervisor] says, we’re still in a period of hype; we’re still looking at the Internet like it’s a party.”

After driving “all around the country” (and through parts of the States), May compiled twenty-two hours of unstructured video interviews. His three- to eleven-hour road trips resulted in over one-hundred filmed conversations with Toby Miller, Jonathan Zittrain, Raymi the Minx, danah boyd (seen in the video above),David Lyon, and, yes, even Michael Geist.

“These interviews really explore the impact of user-generated content, like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube,” says May, whose site was shortlisted for a web award at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas. Although May has successfully defended his MA project, his work on privacy and user awareness has really just begun; at the end of the month, he’s travelling to Cambridge, MA, to present Weekend Pictures at MIT’s “Stone and Papyrus, Storage and Transmission” conference. And in case you’re wondering: yes, he’ll be tweeting about MiT6 while he’s there.

So here we are: four months later.  May’s site is still going strong… and I’m wondering if his claim (echoed by Dr. Elmer) still holds true: are we continuing to look at the Internet like it’s a “party?”  Or is this “period of hype” coming to an end?

Who’s watching the watchdog?

Okay, okay.  So I’ve had my reality TV fun.  I got to finally come clean about my embarrassing prime-time preferences… and now it’s time to move onto something different.  But related.

A couple weeks ago I came across an interesting blog.  The author, a former sea turtle researcher (I know, right?), had a “run-in” with security guards at a Mississauga community centre.  Ultimately, the incident boiled down to a case of he-said/she-said… and, not surprisingly, this woman found herself fighting a losing battle.  But the author, Ursula, wasn’t so concerned with her own fate; she was more concerned about what was happening to other Mississauga residents—particularly those who didn’t have the wisdom, the resources, or the wherewithal to question similar “run-ins” with city-employed staffers.  So Ursula started a blog, became a fixture at council meetings, and asked a question that no one else appeared to be asking: exactly who is watching the so-called (in this case, the city’s) watchdogs?   Who has access to our information—be it security footage from a public library or personal details we post on Facebook?

And here’s something I’d like to know: is this a generational thing—to care about what happens with our personal information?  As someone born in the ’80s, I’ve grown up not only in the Information Age, but also in the Information-Sharing Age.  I’m not at all surprised to turn on the television and see people peddling their realities for (short-lived) fame and fortune; Candid Camera and American’s Funniest Home Videos were just as much a part of my childhood as, say, Full House or Who’s The Boss.  So I’m well acquainted with mass-produced overshare.  Jennifer Ringley and DotComGuy (pioneering video-bloggers) were also on my radar growing up—so I’m also unfazed by self-produced overshare.  And, of course, I hopped right on that Facebook bandwagon when it started becoming popular in Canada (at that time, with university students).  Over the course of four years or so, I shudder to think what I’ve shared with the world.  Increasingly, though, I’ve been shuddering to think what I’ve shared with Facebook employees and advertisers.  But I’ve only really been thinking about this because I have a vested (that is, academic) interest in the subject.  Otherwise, I think my experience with oversharing might have had a desensitizing effect.

So here’s my question: do you think about who’s using and accessing your personal information?  Do you wonder who’ll see the results of your last Google search?  Do you lie awake imaging who might be reviewing the footage of you sneaking a contraband coffee into the Toronto Reference Library?  Or does this not concern you in the least?

Welcome to two-way mirror

“You like reality TV?” they always ask, rhetorically of course.

“‘Like’ is a strong word,” I usually reply.

“So you watch The Hills and Big Brother, and, oh what’s that one with Brody Jenner—”

“—Bromance.”

“Bromance!  I can’t believe you watch that crap.”

But I find it very believable.  To poorly paraphrase Mark Andrejevic, reality TV has become the postmodern escape; instead of escaping from the reality of everyday life, we’re escaping into it.  We’re turning the camera on ourselves, and calling this “entertainment.”

And of course there’s Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Twitter (and WordPress blogs…)—all those online “outlets” that your parents can never quite seem wrap their heads around. (“Facebook… is that like eBay?”)  At long last, we’re no longer reliant on production companies to package and broadcast our realities; we have the ability to do this ourselves.  Like never before, we have full access to the means of production.  And we can commodify and sensationalize our own stories—our everyday life—as we see fit.

But before I start waxing nonsensical, I’d rather open this up to conversation.  What have we gained—and what have we lost—from reality TV?  Keep in mind that reality TV emerged in the late ’70s as a mere experiment (thanks, PBS!), and was re-visited, in the ’80s, out of necessity. How (and why) so?  Simply put, reality TV shows were cheap(er) to produce.  You weren’t using unionized actors, you didn’t have to pay unionized writers—and your “subjects” received a small honorarium in lieu of a real salary.  Now, though, reality TV isn’t just reality TV.  There are sub-genres and sub-sub-genres; there are docu-dramas, game-docs, and docu-drama-game-docs.  And so I ask again: what have we gained?  What have we lost?  And what sort of impact will (and does) Facebook, MySpace, blogs, etc. have on reality TV—and vise versa? And, if you really want to bite off more than you can chew: what does it all mean?