Voyeurgasm
Rodney King’s 1991 beating was a groundbreaking event. Not only did it capture police violence on video, but it helped propel a new Ubertrend, Voyeurgasm, which points to a future where just about everything will be captured by digital cameras or camcorders.
Since then, an explosion in high-profile events have been captured on video, including Central Park’s notorious “wilding” incident , the Concorde crash, September 11, the Mt. Hood helicopter crash and Madelyne Toogood’s child beating, plus a never-ending string of police-car chases and other fabulous foibles.
Voyeurgasm, which one might also call “digital rubbernecking,” is notable for influencing these subtrends:
Camcorders and Phonecams
Voyeurgasm is fueled largely by technology. In July 2003, JVC shipped the first consumer HDTV video camera, the JVC GR-HD1 ($3,500 at the time), which used standard mini-DV tapes to record high-definition quality video.
Sony’s new HDR-CX7 delivers high-def video using a state-of-the-art standard, AVCHD, and captures video on MemoryStick (no moving parts). Once tools like these get in the hands of the YouTube generation, all eyes will be on us.
High-definition technology will raise the quality of homemade voyeurgasmic videos, many of which are bound to end up on television. That will help turn up the graphic volume now produced by the more than 1 billion consumers worldwide armed with camera phones.
Early reverberations of the use of phonecams have already been felt. In Australia and the U.K., swimming pools and sports facilities banned camera phones because pedophiles might be using them to surreptitiously take pictures of children.
In the U.S., some health clubs have taken similar measures. Samsung, a leading manufacturer of camera phones, banned their use at company headquarters, out of fear of corporate espionage. Meanwhile, in Japan camera phones are being used to take pictures of recipes in books or other content of interest, leading to a new trend, “digital shoplifting.”
Expect Voyeurgasm to completely remake media, as the YouTubes, MySpaces and Flickrs of the world conspire with billions of camera phones, digital cameras, camcorders plus surveillance cameras to create a brave new media experience where just about anything goes.
Celebrity Obsession
Our national obsession with celebrities led New Scientist magazine to conclude in 2003 that one-third of Americans were suffering from something it called “celebrity-worship syndrome” (CWS), a figure that’s probably around 50% by now, judging by the massive amounts of publicity that blogs like Perez Hilton and TMZ.com have attracted with their celebrity-peeking adventures.
The “pixel paparazzi” now stand at the ready for any opportunity to capture those “oops I did it again” images so treasured by a celebrity obsessed culture.
Reality Shows
Voyeurgasm’s impact on media consumption is well-documented. In 1992, MTV debuted “Real World,” a show about seven strangers who share a house, which started the reality show trend in earnest. “Big Brother,” created in the Netherlands by Van der Mol Studios, became a big hit in the U.K. in 2000.
“Big Brother” was buoyed by the popularity of peeping-tom webcams, like JenniCam, and was quickly followed by a series of me-too shows, such as “Survivor” and “The Bachelor,” proving that people do indeed like to watch. Today, a plethora of reality shows clog the airwaves.
The public’s fascination with celebrities combined with reality shows produced a logical fad, “celebrity reality,” popularized by the 2003 MTV show “Newlyweds,” a reality show based on a celebrity couple. That unleashed “The Simple Life,” “The Osbournes,” “Celebrity Fit Club,” “The Surreal Life,” “Hogan Knows Best” and our favorite disaster “Being Bobby Brown.”
Multitasking peeping tom: HBO’s new show “HBO Voyeur” expands on Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window by letting viewers peek inside eight apartments.
Today, reality shows have are a standard staple among TV viewers. Our look-at-me culture has fueled a dizzying array of TV shows, ranging from the bizarre to the outrageous. VH1’s “Flavor of Love,” starring Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav, featured a “spitting” incident that defined the term “voyeurgasmic.”
Transparency
Another change brought on by Voyeurgasm is the growing role of transparency in everything we do. From public disclosure to glass-walled bathrooms to see-through restaurant kitchens, society is rapidly vaulting towards a future where being able to see one’s innermost processes will be de rigueur.
San Diego’s Keating Hotel, designed by Pininfarina of Ferrari fame, shows how Voyeurgasm has infiltrated hotel design: a growing number of hotels now feature transparent showers .
Video Surveillance
In the past few years, the video surveillance industry has experienced growth rates of 15% to 20% a year, double the rate of just three years ago, reports JP Freeman CEO Joe Freeman, a security consulting company.
London now has more surveillance cameras monitoring its citizens than any other major city in the world. In all, there are some 500,000 cameras in the city, and one study suggested that in a given day a person could expect to be videotaped at least 300 times.
In this painting, famous U.K. artist Banksy provides biting commentary on how Britain’s closed-circuit TVs have changed the landscape.
The city’s highly visible cameras are posted on corners of many buildings, on new buses and in every underground station. And since 2003, the license plate of every car driving into central London during weekdays is being recorded as part of a program to reduce traffic congestion. London charges a fee to cars it records but also uses the videos to catch and fine cheats.
As “cams” become cheaper and sharper, it’s only a matter of time before virtually everything is captured digitally. Still, as Rodney King’s case proved, Voyeurgasm can often have positive results.