The idea that we live in a technology-enabled surveillance culture is nothing new. From paranoia about machines, where we suspect they are constantly listening to us (despite research claiming otherwise), to how we express our identities online ( We have long abandoned the concept of privacy, to the point where we have a dysfunctional relationship with ourselves (euphemistically referred to as “our data”). . If God wants to judge our every keystroke, so be it. Protecting ourselves is too complex, too burdensome, and we spend too much effort to reap benefits that previously felt invisible.
If we are all potential police officers, we are also all potential criminals.
We also seem to be aware of how surveillance informs how we treat others.
We’ve gone from hitting PrntScrn on our keyboard to copy the entire screen to the clipboard, typically saving an image we’ve enjoyed (or saving a website) to a screenshot in the form of a meme, to its most common iteration as a “receipt”. Masu. ” encapsulates one of the most significant digital behavioral changes of the past 25-plus years, a technology-enabled, self-managed surveillance culture.
Concentration camps with incorrect dates
On her Substack, internet princess Lane Fisher-Quan describes the “feminist panopticon” that reared its ugly and pernicious head in the wake of “West Elm Caleb.” For those lucky enough to have missed the episode of unnecessary public humiliation, “West Elm Caleb” is a serial ghoster based in New York City who uses his malicious dating app etiquette has clashed with TikTok’s algorithm, leading to a flood of videos of women “making light” of sexual assault. The harm he caused them.
The media variously reported this incident as genuinely newsworthy, or in line with Fisher Quan’s views, or as representative of everything that is wrong with cancel culture. Fisher Quan says it most eloquently in his currently viral post.
I can’t help but feel like self-regulatory measures of social control have been woven into our cultural consciousness like a Trojan horse through light-hearted girl power stories about mean boys and unfaithful partners. . We are building a panopticon every day, and feminism is commodified and adulterated to support it.
Elsewhere, people are pondering the prevalence of the “Karen” video and its adjoining forms, and the impulse that, not unlike Fischer Quan’s prophecies, we are all now Warholian Stasis: Always ready to catch wrongdoing and often ready to exploit misdeeds as a springboard to our own 15 minutes of fame. I’m often reminded of the 2010s trend of women being elevated as quasi-folk heroes by calling out so-called “good guys” on dating apps. Malicious tweets filled with screenshots are endlessly amplified on Buzzfeed’s clapback list.
At a bare minimum, we use our shared power to police others in order to gain status and embody personal power. “Aren’t you a bit of an activist for filming a white woman having a meltdown at Victoria’s Secret?”It can quickly become more vindictive.
One thing in particular that I remember is Disturbing events in Loudoun County, Virginia in 2020 In that case, a teenage anti-racist kept videos of his classmates saying racial slurs for years and only released them when he was accepted to college. Her acceptance was quickly rescinded. While the racial dimension was never lost on the conversation, the boy’s actions are not only a symptom of our surveillance culture, but an example of how brutally competitive we have become. was duly constructed as.
digital prison cell
If we are all potential police officers, we are also all potential criminals. Research on the effects of frequent Tumblr use on users (including my own) shows that this atmosphere increases self-censorship, even if you disagree with the claims being made. and Even if the impact is low-stakes, for example, if it’s happening in a fan community of which you’re only half-heartedly a member. More specifically here, K-Pop and One Direction fan communities are notoriously strict about what is and isn’t acceptable, and have their own strongly enforced social norms. have. In my interviews, I realized that even people who aren’t particularly concerned with these community norms self-censor not just in these online spaces, but also in real life just by exposure. There are many reasons why this happens, one of which may be that some people are conditioned to avoid conflict. Now imagine a scenario where the stakes are higher, such as college admissions or a career.
But that being said, not everyone bends the same way under pressure. What will happen to those who remain anti-authoritarian? Or who is more prone to self-harm? The act of sending a violative signal message without enabling “Set Message Disappearance to 1 Second” is even more violative than the content of the text itself Could a text message that we know could be screenshotted be an expression of self-destructive behavior?
This dynamic is strangely underconsidered on dating apps and, incidentally, is also fertile ground for rebuke across the political spectrum. Even if we return to the story of West Elm Caleb, the criticism is not as well-founded. Dating app dynamics In the transformation from the personal (sharing a screenshot with a friend) to the semi-public (TikTok, which has the potential to go viral but is not certain) to the very public (journalists’ reporting) Even more so.
dating app limbo
What’s interesting is that dating apps have been performative from the beginning, and users enter with the expectation that they shouldn’t do that. Be yourself; you are already self-regulating across another axis. For most of us, we want our dating app profiles to be at the intersection of our best selves and our most attractive selves to others.
But how does adding the possibility that “this might be screenshotted” affect how we approach others? There are many reasons to be photographed. What if we offend someone not just because our profile or interaction is “offensive” but because of rejection or even less obvious reasons? Here, additional points of friction become more apparent.
While there are certain cultural norms about what’s appropriate, whether it’s a LinkedIn profile or a public park, it’s even more vague when it comes to relationships. In either scenario, you’ll get some sense of what makes people uncomfortable, but romance, especially online, remains the Wild West.
And paradoxically, even the things that describe us most flatteringly in a romantic context are not necessarily immune to being ridiculed or labeled as offensive. This is the danger of sex and romance in general. What resonates with one person may not necessarily resonate with everyone.
To bring us back to dating apps, imagine someone’s extra nightmare There is If you engage in something that is not socially acceptable as romantic, but somehow offend the other person, they will use that information against you in the form of screenshots. In another world, these discoveries that your romantic approach matches hers and isn’t “creepy” might have been seen as an opportunity to forge a unique connection. These are the building blocks of chemistry.
But in today’s world, they can always be potential ammunition. Will these subtle types of communication end up being suppressed, or will there be an air of taboo in the case of unusual fetishes? Neither possibility is healthy.
