Celebrities and Facebook

Talking about privacy on facebook in class this week got me thinking about those people in society who have perhaps the least privacy of all....celebrities. A while ago when I was a freshman in high school and had just joined myspace, I remember one of the big "fads" was to post your pictures on worldisround.com. This was right around the time when the tv show, laguna beach had come out. Obviously this show became a hit fast, and to myself and most other 15 year old girls (the target audience), the people on the show became instant celebrities. I remember being at my friends house one night, when she told me she had found one of the show's characters worldisround account pictures. This was a huge deal to us and to everyone else who we showed, because it was like a personal insight into these kids lives, which revealed things that the show did not. However, a soon as the show became a big time hit, the pictures and account were removed.
Similarly today, as soon as someone becomes famous, their facebook account is bombarded with requests, messages etc. etc. As fans people tend to view facebook or online accounts as personal, private insights into these celebrities lives. Most really big timer celebrities (think julia roberts or tom cruise) don't have any sort of social media spaces. They get enough attention as it is. However, people who are lower down on the popularity scale have taken advantage of facebook's Fan Pages. Facebook fan pages are another way for celebrities to interact and connect with fans, without it being a total invasion of privacy. They can update funny statuses and pictures and receive hundreds of comments. This is usually a one way street, as they typically don't respond to those who write on their wall, and you are not a personal friend of the celebrity but one of thousands of fans who "like" them. The amount of people who become your "fan" can be directly linked to how popular you are in the media at that moment. for example this link talks about how lady gaga surpassed president obama with facebook fans. A testement attributed mostly to the types of people who are on facebook and who actually like celebrity fan pages. As of this past summer, when Gaga was perhaps at her highest peak of celebredom, she managed to rack up 10 million facebook fans.
In regards to privacy, celebrities are not able to have the luxury of having private facebook pages, as we have seen firsthand through class discussions that that rarely works. Pictures posted of celebrities on facebook are just one more way for the media to obtain them and for the rest of the world to see, which has happened numerous times. However, fan pages have become a new way, along with twitter, blogs, websites and other social media forms, for fans to feel like they can have little taste of their favorite celebrities day to day lives.

Internet = A Dangerous Outlet

Some people use art to express themselves, others do so through sports or yoga, but today increasingly more young people are finding their identity through internet blogs and sights such as myspace and face book. Its no secret that most of us spend way too much time on the internet. But as seen in this weeks reading, many young people have started to use the internet as a space to express themselves through pictures, blogs, statuses, quotes etc. It is a way for kids to get away from their hectic daily schedules and socialize in a free space, where they can do and say what they want. Some people take this to the extreme, and use the internet to expose every detail of their life, to post inappropriate pictures or to vent about a problem they are having. Talking about this in class reminded me of my senior year of high school, when we had a speaker talk to us about "cleaning up" our images on the internet, before we started applying to colleges. In other words, we were told that it would be smart for us to take down any pictures of underage drinking, or other inappropriate behavior, cursing on our page etc. Back then, I didn't really think much of it, but as my younger brother starts applying to college, I thought I'd do a little research about just how many colleges actually check Face Book or MySpace. I came across this article, which basically says that today, one out of 10 college admissions officers checks applicants Face books, and 88% of recruitment officers. Because of this, the Internet may not be a space for kids to socially connect and express themselves anymore. Anything kids today put online could be held against them, which, in many cases, they do not understand.

Private or Public?

In class this week we talked a lot about privacy online. In a world where almost everyone has their own personal online space, it is hard to define where to draw the line with what information you make available and to whom you make it available. Pretty much everyone that you meet nowadays can be searched for on Face book, Linkedin, or even google. This is where the privacy in the real world verses online becomes blurry. For example you may meet someone briefly in person, and form your opinion on them based on that meeting. From that meeting they may seem like someone who is quiet or someone who is reserved, but when you search for them online (Face book) their pictures could present an entirely different persona. They could have pictures of them dancing on a bar or taking shots with friends that rival your initial opinion of them. Privacy on Face Book can be controlled. The reading on SNS argues that such sites "do not provide users with the flexibility they need to handle conflicts with Friends who have different conceptions of privacy". This could create trouble for offline relationships. If someone was to make all of their information private, it could offend those who can no longer see their information.

Privacy can also affect personal offline relationships in other ways. For example a good friend might find out that you are engaged at the same time as someone you barely know, because of Face book. This complicates relationships, because you would obviously want your good friends to know of your happy news before anyone else. However, this is all a part of "social networking". I think that in time, people will learn easier ways to bridge the gap between their online and offline relationships.