The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

There are a lot of errors in The Peep Diaries. It was an interesting read, don't get me wrong, but it definitely could have used a competent editor to go over it a final time before publishing. The errors were really distracting from the topic of how much the average person puts out there for anyone to see and at what cost. After I finished it, I adjusted my privacy settings on several websites. To see the errors I detected, click here.

whole messy quid pro quo of friendship

We'd rather be at home peering at each other online than putting ourselves out there for friendship, messy emotional connection, and all the responsibilities and frustrations that come with forming attachments to others. We're tired, we're stressed, and we're conditioned now to get home from our daily labors and lose ourselves in virtual environments, whether they be TV, video games, other people's profiles and blogs, or our own.

This puts the success of something like PostSecret in a whole new light. It's not just that we use PostSecret to anonymously get things off our chest and get insight into what other people are struggling with. It's that we actually prefer it that way - why get into the whole messy quid pro quo of friendship, the whole I'll-listen-to-you-if-you-listen-to-me burden of the thing, when we can do it online, no mess, no fuss, no one calling you up next week and saying, "Listen, I need help, can I borrow a hundred bucks?"

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

luscious ice cream pie

In his office, Pridmore pulled out two grocery store newsprint fliers. They were from the same store, covering the same week of specials. Except that one flier had a delicious grilled salmon with rice pilaf on the cover to advertise a special on salmon fillets, and one had a luscious ice cream pie on the cover, to advertise a good deal on frozen treats. According to Pridmore, the first flier was distributed in a neighborhood that had indicated a preference for healthy eating, and the other flier was distributed in an area that had statistically been more likely to go for the processed foods and calorie-laden treats.

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

absence is the ultimate terror

So when the age of Peep demands more and more caught-on-tape sensational moments, it's not because we really believe we'll be safer if the camera is on. What we believe is that if we're on camera, we'll be less alone. Under the impartial "regime" of the camera's eye, we'll continue to exist even after we're grabbed by the arms and hustled out of the mall. We'll die, perhaps, but we won't disappear.
...
In a postmodern society that turns everything into an endless recording, absence is the ultimate terror. We embrace surveillance because we're terrified of disappearing "without a trace."

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

Secrets are revealed, but nobody talks

All our lives we feel watched. But that sense of being overseen gives us no comfort. We're watched by doctors, teachers, officials, the tax man. And they in turn are watched. And those who watch them are watched. Secrets are revealed, but nobody talks, and we remain alone on an increasingly crowded planet.

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

acting in ways

Shaming doesn't work very well anymore. Our societies and communities have changed. We live in an anonymous society of single-family dwellings, lonely car commutes to work, and tenuous social connections that we have to work harder and harder to maintain. And we are transient - we move from place to place quickly and easily, shedding identities and pasts, endlessly reinventing ourselves. We cannot be shamed because there is no single inescapable community that knows us, gossips about us, and watches us for signs that we are acting in ways contrary to the accepted standards of society.

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

out loud, how embarrassing

"There are moments," casting producer Tamra Barcinas tells me, "where it's like 'I can't believe you would say that out loud, how embarrassing.' But they'll have a screening party back home with their friends and family, and they're so thrilled that they actually got to be on TV. That was their moment."

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki

love watching ourselves

We're all learning to love watching ourselves and our neighbors. Peep's power is that it is widespread and elusive. It's a whispered, hypnotic idea: You need to know. You need to be known. In Peep we feel the cathartic release of confession, the allure and danger of gossip, and the timeless comfort of ritual. When we peer in on each other, we experience the thrill of performance, the purge of the talking cure, the erotic frisson of forbidden sex. Peep culture takes from all those things, but isn't any of them.

-- The Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki