The Peep Diaries

Pretty good day of writing today. I’ve been writing about the relationship between secrets and gossip, connecting the ubiquitous human tendencies to gossip and tell secrets to the rise of Peep Culture. I used PostSecret and Twitter as examples of arenas where gossip and secrets now go global and also function as entertainment. Then I started connecting the whole shift to the institutionalization of confession in various forms including the catholic church, bookkeeping, the keeping of social statistics, and psychiatry/the talking cure. So I guess what I’m wondering here is – does that sound like something you want to read? I’m trying to keep it relatively fast-paced, despite the plunges into history and theory.

In other news, lately I’ve been hurting trying to come up with good things to cook for dinner. I’m usually in charge of cooking since W. doesn’t get home until 6 or so. It’s always tricky because I’ve also got to pick up E. from daycare so whatever I make for dinner has to fit around that schedule. Anyway, I’m in a rut. Last night I reheated leftovers and supplemented with a can of baked beans and a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches. I must do better. I can do better. I’m pathetic and lazy and can’t think of what to make tonight and it’s already ten to four.

Upcoming blog posts I will write eventually: Hal wants more Twitter friends; Jerry’s looking for guys to do it with Dena; Lifting the 5,000 friends limit on Facebook; W. thinks E. is rude to her little friends but I don’t care as long as she’s nice to me.

Sick with a cold today. I tried and failed to get much work done. I’m working on the 2nd chapter of the book, but spent most of the day just kinda staring at the screen then off into space then back at the screen. I still feel like I accomplished something in some weird way. Maybe what I accomplished is a 2 hour nap. Anyway, I wrote about 2 pages total, which takes the page number total up to 60 or so. Enough for the book to take a kind of shape. More on that soon. For now, suffice it to say that my head feels like it’s the size of a watermelon. The highlight of my day was my next door neighbour telling me he accidentally bought a giant sized white daikon radish thinking it was, for some reason, swiss chard.

A quick update right now. I’m working on the Peep Culture book, writing the chapter about Reality Television. Man do I have a lot of material! I can easily fill 50 pages just talking about people who have been on the shows, people who make the shows and people who watch the shows.

But here’s the thing: I also have tons of material on the history of television as it emerges into reality tv, basically arguing that from the beginning peep culture was embedded in mediated entertainment. But how much of that stuff should I put in there? Do people want to read about the history of television from Father Knows Best to I Love Lucy to CSI? What do you think?

ps – say something…it will be kinda embarrassing if no one bothers to answer this question…ha!

Okay, all this week I’ve been having conversations with Private Detective Steven Rambam. He runs the Pallorium detective agency. He’s truculent and honest and probably a little bit crazy which makes him perfect to be part of the whole Peep project. He does lectures on the death of privacy and specializes in digital detection. Oh and did I mention that he’s also hunted Nazis and been arrested by the FBI? (they dropped the charges).

He agreed to investigate me and report back what he discovers. He says he will find out everything there is to know about me including pictures of my friends and tape recordings of them talking about my most embarrassing moments. Should be sweet! Naturally all his recordings and files will go up on peephal.com once as it develops. Stay tuned my friends….

The plan right now is to have him unveil the results of the investigation at the HOPE (hackers on planet earth) conference in New York in July with me on stage in front of a live audience who has gathered to hear Steven talk about the death of privacy. Naturally we need to get the whole thing on tape for the doc and book. I have to talk to the producers about this and hopefully it will work.

Okay, so I’m excited. I mean Steven actually promised to give me a “digital colophony.” It’s just what I’ve always wanted.

Listen to an interview with Steven here. (It’s the 2nd half of the show.)

So a long gap between my first post and the next two posts. That’s because the launch date for the blog got put off until Sally (director of the peep culture documentary) got back from Paris. You see, the doc people want to film the launch of the blog. So everyone’s coming over today to capture this exciting moment. I spent the morning cleaning my office. You can see the floor now. It’s nice. I’ll take a picture.
Anyway, I’m feeling a bit anxious about the whole thing. I’ve never blogged or really had much about my personal life out there. As a writer I like to re-read and re-think everything I put out there. I’ll need to get over that. Plus, of course, the whole idea of developing an audience of people interested in peeping my life. I can honestly say that I have no idea what that will feel like. So we’ll see.

We’ve just passed Belleville, Ontario and I’m listening to the woman one row up shuffle through papers and talk loudly on her cell about how she needs help figuring out how to reboot her suddenly inoperative Blackberry. I don’t know who she’s talking to since it’s only 8:00 am. Anyway, it’s a fitting start to this blog. Am I peeping her or is she happily exposing herself to anyone who cares enough to listen? I’m not really peeping, because what else can I do but listen? On the other hand, I am doing more than listen – I’m paying attention and writing down what she’s saying.
This blog is about the rise of peep culture. Definition: a culture of mass voyeurism in which we get more and more of our kicks from peeping in on the entertaining foibles of the real lives of others; at the same time, we become more and more amenable to others peeping in on our lives.
So a bit of a peep into my morning: The train left at 7 am. I woke up at 6:10, five minutes or so before my cab was supposed to show up. Actually I didn’t wake up, W woke me up. Who knows when I would have gotten up if left to my own devices. I was counting on the kid to wake us both up at 6 am exactly, like she does every morning. Today, the little bugger decided to sleep in. So much to W’s annoyance I ended up waking them both up as I fumbled for something to wear and stumbled into the bathroom to brush my teeth.
Anyway, I grabbed my carefully packed bag, kissed everyone goodbye and jumped into the waiting cab. Five minutes later I realized I had forgotten my laptop, so we turned around. I ran back into the house past W and kid, and bounded up the stairs. W, who is the kind of person who has to get everywhere at least an hour early, shook her head in horror as I waved yet another frantic goodbye.
At this time in the morning it takes less than 10 minute to get from my house to the train station so I got there with fifteen minutes to spare – time to hit the bank machine and grab a coffee before the train pulled out. Stepping onto the train a few minutes before it left the station reminded me how annoying flying is and how great train travel is. High speed rail please!
I haven’t told you why I’m going to Kingston yet: On Monday, while compiling peep related links for this blog I dropped in on a site I’d been meaning to visit but hadn’t gotten around to yet. It was the website of the Surveillance Project , founded by sociologist David Lyon and located at Queen’s University in Kingston. I noticed that they had a talk scheduled on Thursday. A criminology prof from University of Montreal was coming to talk about public perception of CCTV surveillance cameras. Perfect material for an article I’m writing for The Walrus magazine and for the peep culture book I’m researching. So I called them up and asked if I could come visit the Surveillance Project and talk to David Lyon and the University of Montreal Prof. They set me up with 3 interviews – Lyon, the Prof and a grad student doing research on Facebook. That plus the talk seemed to make it more than worthwhile to spend a day in Kingston. I’ll be arriving in about ten minutes, so we’ll soon see if I’m right. (By the way, 2 more audible cell phone conversations took place on the train while I wrote this: One woman trying to coordinate a meeting and one woman just chatting about her life.)