“Celebrity” stalking in the 21st century.By Leah Bhabha
Fall 2007 [Number 2]
“Lindsay’s HOT REHAB ROMANCE!”, “Brad and Angelina adopt a 24th child! But is Angie getting too skinny?”, “Amy Winehouse’s family beg her: stop doing drugs…and your hair like that.”
We are in an age of ultimate celebrity scrutiny. Although entertainers have always been highly important to the public, the advances in media communication of recent years have created an unparalleled obsession with celebrities, practically condemning anyone who fails to utilize their computer or Blackberry as a personal Britney-stalking device.
With websites like perezhilton.com and the plethora of ever-available gossip magazines, including InTouch and US Weekly, we are constantly updated on the intricacies of celebrities’ lives, while assured that they are “just like us” when they buy toilet paper, eat a sandwich, or attend Kabbalah services. This notion of perennial surveillance, which can be deemed “stalker culture,” hits close to home with the relatively recent and hugely widespread advent of Facebook.
now introducing, stalkbook.com
 (art by Claudia Mattos)
What started as simply a networking tool has grown into an international obsession, with many people updating and checking their profiles multiple times a day. (As I write this, I receive an email that a friend from elementary school has just written on my wall…hopefully it’ll be something amusing [read: inordinately inappropriate] to further inspire me.)
And it is not only our own profiles which we incessantly peruse but also those of others which continue to fascinate us and warrant many hours of close inspection. It is as if, with Facebook, we are creating a new and undeserving generation of celebrities: ourselves. Like the reality television stars who parade around with no talent and minimal credentials considering the fame they possess, we allow ourselves to be constantly stalked.
“People are voluntarily putting up their real lives—it’s like reality TV to the next level,” said San Francisco blogger Beth Prouty in an article in the Los Angeles Times. Accustomed to our obsession with celebrities and their every move, we apply our newfound stalker culture to our peers, browsing their status updates, newest pictures, and wall posts. In a Fortune Magazine article, author David Kirkpatrick refers to Facebook’s news feed as a “bulletin...about what your friends are doing all day long.”
So what is it that makes us want to see what our friends are doing all day long? We already have celebrities’ body language and odd behavior to obsess over and analyze; why inflict this same probing examination on ourselves? According to Danah Boyd, anthropologist at UC Berkeley, Facebook stalking feeds our “deeply ingrained desire to know.”
what’s in a profile?
By barely scraping the surface of a profile, one can often take an accurate albeit superficial journey into the life of a person and note the selectively crafted decisions that have been made. Through hyperlinked, categorized lists—sexual preference, relationship status, date of birth, favorite quotes, religious views, etc.— we itemize every part of ourself. Events are created and circulated through Facebook with the assumption that this form of publicity will surpass all others.
Other purposes are undeniably more sinister. One Cornell junior said, “My boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend stalks me on Facebook. I had to block her when she started sending me messages. Now she uses someone else’s account.” Awkward, at best.
This undoubtedly resembles the time when I received a Facebook message from a University of Wisconsin graduate who informed me that he had already friended “the hot daughter” of a famous literary critic and wanted to be my friend because he had read one of my father’s books. I found this hilarious but also frighteningly lame (my father was less amused).
Although Facebook stalking is often seen as a lighthearted activity, stranger and scarier events often ensue. One Cornell sophomore received a late night Instant Message from a 40-year-old man who had found her screen name on The Book. Even though he agreed not to contact her after she requested that he leave her alone, she still felt vulnerable and scared. “It just freaked me out that some completely random guy could contact me so personally just because of Facebook,” she said.
Since members can be of any age (read: 40+ with creepy facial hair and a strange likeness to PeeWee Herman) and possess all manner of intentions, devious or not, safety has become a concern as the links between complete strangers are disappearing. What truly defines a Facebook friend? Is it even remotely necessary to have actually met the person you are “friending”?
air-brushing and self-revision
As I (voraciously) peruse the latest issue of US Weekly or, if I’m feeling particularly saucy, InTouch, I muse on the complete artificiality of each air-brushed photo of Kate Moss (looking both demure and alert after a nourishing snort of cocaine) or Jennifer Lopez modeling the latest Cavalli gown (Marc Anthony lovechild in tow). How different is this from the meticulous de-tagging of photographs and careful attention to our listed personal interests?
Just as celebrities’ cellulite, uncomely freckles, and/or the physical effects of a bevy of drugs are removed for the perfect final product, we can each successfully tailor our own Facebook persona and end up just as superficial and image-driven as gossip magazines. Since we represent ourselves through images which depict us looking drunker and more attractive than we really are, while we de-tag pictures which fail to meet the necessary standards of sexiness, a friend of mine summed it up: “What you wear in your Facebook picture is like what you wear to the Oscars.” So true, Rachel, so true.
photography in the electronic age
Now that images are beginning to capture what we want people to see rather than a moment itself, Facebook and other digital image sites have changed the nature of photography irreparably. Now our generation does things specifically to photograph them, instead of only using pictures to record events which would already have occurred. Very few girls will spend a night out without bringing a camera. It is as if the existence of these photographs on Facebook confirms that the event actually occurred.
In an age filled with Blackberries, cell phones, and other forms of constant communication, it may reassure us to know that people can be aware of our recent actions around the clock and to add yet another means of contact to the many we already possess. And the opportunity to reach people with whom we might have lost touch is a compelling reason to use Facebook, since its growing popularity ensures a reconnection with nearly every person from our past. But our preoccupation with celebrities and stalker culture is at least partly at the root of our Facebook use. Although we critique celebrities and obsess over every aspect of them, perhaps we want to award ourselves this same sense of glamour and allure.
It is interesting to question the future of Facebook and of stalker culture. Will its widespread hold over our generation continue? Or, like other fads, will it die down and become something seen only on VH1’s I Love the 2000s? Says Megan Dubatowka ’08, “I honestly think [Facebook] will start to get weird and sensible people will tone down their excessive use of [the site] because the endless applications are starting to make it very lame.”
According to Jackson Duncan, a sophomore at the New School, “Facebook will continue to be this important as long as people don’t have real issues in their life to worry about.” Although the future of Facebook remains unclear, it is clearly a completely different world with minimal implications of reality or any semblance to every day human life as we know it. The impact of Facebook on future generations is also questionable, and one wonders if younger people will be as obsessed with stalking as we are.
Facebook clearly has an exceedingly multi-faceted existence among our generation. Part dating site, part diary, and (large) part favorite obsessive habit, The Book seems to have it all. So now that I’ve successfully tantalized you with my endless talk of it, go ahead, log onto the sixth most visited site…and friend me if you like. |
