Monday, September 18, 2017

I Don't Want to Live in Public

I'll be honest, Josh Harris's "experiments" in the documentary "We Live in Public" disturbed me--specifically "Quiet" and "We Live in Public." I don't understand what could have possibly gone on in his head to drive him to do these things. I don't understand how someone could want to collect so much video footage of other people not only during their more private moments, but eventually of them changing and devolving into something almost animal-like. Then, when he streamed his entire life with his girlfriend 24/7, I wasn't surprised when she seemed to get tired of never having a private moment. Sure, it's an interesting way to interact with others, but only in short bursts. Doing that all day every day is a huge invasion of privacy and Josh didn't seem to care about baring himself to his audience. Knowing full well that cameras were on them and people were watching, he still wanted to be intimate with his girlfriend. He even put a camera in his toilet. Everyone could see everything. The cameras never turned off. I'm a shy person when I meet new people and I like my privacy, so this entire concept seems incredibly bizarre to me, and the extent Josh takes it to is disturbing. There were several times I almost stopped watching.
I was also shocked by the response people had to the Quiet project. People seemed a little nervous about being on camera 24/7 at first, but after a while, not only did they not care, but they weren't acting like themselves. People walked around naked, waved guns around, openly used the bathroom and didn't care about people watching them in the shower. They didn't have any shame and were incredibly careless. I don't know how people could have changed that much over such a short period of time.
Now, I know last we heard, Josh is on an apple farm by himself. He's doing the complete opposite of what he did with the "We Live in Public" project. He barely talks to people and he just farms apples. I want to know what he's up to now and his thoughts on how people stream on Twitch and YouTube and how people make money for it--but they only show glimpses of their lives. I'd also ask him what made him think of doing his "experiments."
However his projects definitely made me reevaluate why I want to film myself on trips or at cool places. This is my life; why would I want to share it? Maybe Josh Harris' story should be taken as a cautionary tale. People (myself included) should be careful with how much of ourselves we post online and make sure we keep our humanity and decency. With internet privacy becoming an ever-increasing concern, maybe we should cut back on how much we live in public.

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