Tue Apr 28,
2009,
14:46 GMT

Peep is Recession Proof and Other Confessions from the Ranks of the Unemployed

Posted by: Hal
Tags:

Peep is not only recession proof, like the movies and beer, it actually benefits from the recession. Here are the reasons why.

1) More time on social networks. We believe, rightly and wrongly and the jury is still out on this, that our social network can help us get a job. So, increasingly, the first thing we do when we get laid off is let everyone on FB, LinkedIn, etc. know ASAP, not to mention sending an array of Tweets and Text Messages to make sure everyone knows we are out there hunting for new employment. A recent article in the Orlando Sentinel starts: “Just minutes after she was laid off from her job earlier this month, Brittany Ward pulled out her cell phone and typed a short message. ‘Needs a job.’ Ward, a 23-year-old account manager at an Altamonte Springs marketing firm, hadn’t even told her family.” There’s a reason we’re sending tweets like there’s no tomorrow – because for a lot of us, there’s no tomorrow.

Laidoffjobsearch

Here’s the aforementioned Brittany searching for a job via laptop.

2) Recession blogs! We have the time because we’re unemployed, we think getting our name out there is a good idea that might lead to a job offer (again, jury is out on that one) so we blog. Here are just some of the recession blogs I found. Pink Slips are the New Black, Laid off in NYC, Recently Laid Off, and Fired For Now etc. There’s even a recession cooking blog that has gone viral featuring the recipes of a 90 year old who survived the great depression. (Which, as far as I can tell, looks nothing like our current situation: Recession 09: I’m going to have to cut down on my Starbucks Skinny Mocha Latte until I get a new job. Great Depression: Can anyone spare a cup of coffee and a slice of stale bread? I haven’t eaten in a week.)

Depressioncookingtext Claradepressioncooking

Much of this blog material is classic Peep. Here’s a little snippet from a post on Fired For Now about Mom telling her kids she’s been let go: “So when I lost my job, I felt a deep sense of shame in telling them the news. I felt like I had failed them. I wasn’t the parent they could be proud of. No child boasts about a parent who spends their days at home in sweat pants, on the phone and net in between reruns of Law and Order.”

3) Corporate Peep Predators. Yep, when the times are tough, the Peep predators are ready and waiting to take advantage of our misery. Ergo, Newsweek’s My Turn column is running a contest on Twitter: send them your “recession story” on Twitter and you’ll maybe win the right to actually publish an entire column in Newsweek about your misery. In the meantime, “All of the tweets will be streamed on Newsweek.com” for the general amusement of those with two much time on their hands, both in the office and lying around on the couch.

Still on the subject of weird and predatory and Peep-inspired, how about this news story about a coffee shop trying to entice people to keep spending their money on mocha lattes (see mini-rant above) by hiring only comely young ladies to serve the coffee in bikinis?

Meanwhile, the Dallas News reports gangbuster business at a stripper job fair in that hard hit city. Wow. The dead-pan article trumpeting the “jobless to topless” job fair makes it sound like stripping is basically the perfect solution for unemployed women with the appropriate skill set.

Finally, Fox has a new Reality TV show in the works (no word on air date yet) called Someone’s Gotta Go. The show pits employees against each other as small companies seek to down-size and the employees themselves have to decide who should get laid off. Thanks for making people losing their jobs fun Fox…and for proving once and for all that Peep is recession proof.

Comments: -7-, Add yours…

Tue Apr 28,
2009,
13:31 GMT

Winner of the Peep Diaries City Lights Contest

Posted by: Hal
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So the challenge was to go to the City Lights fan page on FaceBook, become a fan, and enter a link or a description of something you think epitomizes Peep Culture. The winner gets an advance copy of my new book The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors.

And the winner is…El Carew Costello of Toronto. For not 1, not 2, but 3 entries:

First, this Fox morning show broadcast featuring three chirpy hosts enthusiastically presenting footage of a polar bear in a zoo chewing on the leg of a woman who, for unknown reasons, jumped into bear habitat.

Then, he offered up this possibly fake but who really knows surveillance footage of a man exploding in office rage and really taking it out on a computer monitor.

And for good measure, he ended it all up with the most disturbing video of the 3 (which is saying a lot). A grisly car crash caught on tape? A high school punch up? Naw. It’s a BBC news clip on the story of the father of one of the child actors in Slumdog Millionaire who may or may not have tried to sell the kid to a journalist. (Who was doing what exactly?) Comes complete with the girl’s mom and step mom pulling each other’s hair while cameramen film the domestic violence.

Thanks El Carew, well deserved victory for plumbing the depths of Peep and bringing several great examples of the intersection of Peep Culture and so-called “news” to our attention.

Runners-up:

SB Stokes of San Francisco: Flickr photos are yet another dimension of what is referred to as “community”, but what is really a very deep level of reciprocal “peeperism”, exhibitionist and voyeur wed through yet another digital channel…

Amy Kosh of Nyack, NY: Very typical American media and public losing their moral compasses. Offering Blagoyovich his own radio talk show, an offer to also be on a reality show and all because the guy pulled illegal moves in government and was incredibly stupid and u ethical? Makes me question why anyone tries to do the right thing these days, morally speaking.

So, should we do it again soon? What else do you have for me?

Add your comment…

Fri Apr 24,
2009,
18:57 GMT

E’s Ear Infection: The Case for Peep

Posted by: Hal
Tags:

Okay since I’ve been raging pretty hard lately against Peep Culture, I thought I’d share something Peep positive.

This morning, I sent the following twitter, which also automatically flowed to my Facebook as a Status Update:

the kid throwing up yesterday, seems fine now. diagnosis by medvisit doc at 10pm: ear infection>

Next thing you know, I had no fewer than 9 comments from 7 different people offering sympathy and advice:

1. Glad she’s okay. How is MedVisit anyway? Do you have to pay? Is it through TeleHealth or OHIP?

2. (from me) medvisit is great as long as it’s a minor issue and you can wait at home 3-5 hours. it’s free! covered by ohip!

3. ear infections— [my kid] gets them a lot and they used to lead to some serious horror movie style vomiting where I really did expect her head t spin around. Poor little thing—hope she gets better quickly. They are pretty tough.

[Hal says: hey E. puked too!]

4. my doberman pinscher gets ear infections quite frequently. i just blow on his ear lightly until he starts wagging his tail.

[note: Hal says: what a hilarious and strange comment!]

5. MedVisit is totally free. You call them and the doc comes to your house. I have always found it to be a good service. My son had constant ear infections until he was 3 and a half. After that, he was never sick again!

[Hal says: yeah it rules to have doc come to your house!]

6. Poor kiddo. I hear the hug+antibiotic combo does wonders

7. When mine was little she got them a lot too. My doctor told me unofficially (for some strange reason)... to try giving her dimetab at night whenever she was really stuffy and to steam her up in the bathroom with a towel under the door to keep everything thinly running. She hasn’t had one since.

[Hal: Makes sense, doc says they usually get them at the end of a cold from being all congested…]

8. Those are the worst. Horrible for the kid and horrifying for the parents. Ibuprofen dents the pain a little. Forget Tylenol.

9. Don’t laugh but I strongly recommend a chiropractor. Yes, for an ear infection! Before replying with ‘it’s Hare Krishna medicine’... look into it. I’m sorta against antibiotics.

[Hal says: I would like to see the look on W’s face when I tell her I’m taking the kid to a chiropractor for her ear infection…]

10. I agree… dimetab is better than antibiotics but if the ear canal could be adjusted a tad to open up and prevent infection even better!

11. (from me) wow! ear infection advice aplenty! thanks for the sympathy and ideas…kid is feeling much better, sleeping it off right now.

So I’m posing this little exchange to help remind me that it’s not all bad. That, in fact, Peep features many sweet exchanges like this one.

Comments: -21-, Add yours…

Fri Apr 24,
2009,
11:24 GMT

Naked Wizard Tasered: The Case Against Peep TV

Posted by: Hal
Tags:

Nakedwizardtaser

You can debate the actions of the police in this video all you want. But what I want you to think about are two things:

1) 250,000 have watched this video on Vimeo in 3 days. Yesterday Huffington Post put it up. Now its on Digg, on LiveNews Australia, and who knows how many blogs (like this one). By the end of the day today, I’m sure more than 1 million people will have watched this video.

2) Keep an eye on the crowd in this video. They are the real story here. They stand around in a semi-circle a respectful distance from the action pointing their camera phones. As the situation escalates, the number of cameras recording the action increases. Is this citizen journalism, an activist public intent on monitoring the scene? Or is this prurient Peep recording – chronicling another person’s confusion and misery because they know other people will find it entertaining?

Two questions:

*If the police had pulled out their night-sticks and started savagely beating this man, would anyone in this crowd of mesmerized photographers have intervened?

*Why will millions of people watch this six minute clip? (Here’s a clue: a very enthusiastic Huffington Post introduced the video this way: Herewith, the best Tasering video since ‘Don’t Tase me bro!’)

Naked Wizard Tased By Reality from Tracy Anderson on Vimeo.

Comments: -21-, Add yours…

Wed Apr 22,
2009,
20:39 GMT

Come Peep the Peep Diaries: Tour Dates

Posted by: Hal
Tags:

Okay, at long last here is the complete information about the Peep Diaries tour. Please come to these events and bring your friends! And if you live in or near one of these cities and are interested in having me do a lunchtime talk at your company, or a visit with your book club or something else like that, let me know and we’ll work it out. (And if you want to invite me to your city to talk Peep, click here.)

Toronto: Tue, May 19. The Gladstone Hotel, 256 Queen St West. 7:30 pm in association with This Is Not a Reading Series/Pages Books.

Boston/Cambridge: Tue, May 26. Harvard Coop Bookstore, 1400 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge. 7:00 pm.

Boston area: Wed, May 27. Back Pages Books, 289 Moody Street, Waltham, MA. 7:30pm

New York City: Thu, May 28. McNally Jackson Bookstore, 52 Prince Street. 7:30 pm.

New York City: Fri, May 29. Hal at Book Expo America. City Lights Booth, 655 W 34th St (Jacob K Javits Convention Center). 2–4pm.

Chicago: Thu, June 4. Quimby’s Books, 1854 West North Avenue Chicago. 7pm.

Los Angeles: Friday, June 5. Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood. 7pm.

San Francisco: Monday, June 8. Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street. 7:30 pm.

San Francisco: Tuesday, June 9. Technorati Headquarters, 665 3rd Street, Suite 207. 12:30pm. Note: This free, open to the public event will feature a talk by Hal and a q+a session specifically for web 2.0 entrepreneurs interested in exploring the moral/social issues raised by the rise of social media, search engines and more. Held and sponsored by live search engine site Technorati.

Washington, DC/Rockville, MD: Thursday, June 11. Barnes & Noble Rockville, 12089 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. 7:30 pm.

Buffalo: Thursday, June 18. Sugar City, 19 Wadsworth St. 7 pm. In association with the Buffalo Small Press Book Fair, Talking Leaves Bookstore, and the Just Buffalo Literary Center.

Event Description

Join award winning cultural observer Hal Niedzviecki as he takes you on a multimedia tour of our new world: Peepville.

In Peepville, Hal will show you such notable features as streets lined with surveillance cameras, day cares equipped with webcams, and citizens eagerly tracking themselves and each other via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and shared GPS.

Behind all those cameras, cell phones and profiles are real people. It’s time to meet your neighbors, the peeps of Peepville! Some of them are inexplicably revealing the intimate details of their (sex) lives online. Others have become the new enforcers of (digital) morality – digicam vigilantes who stalk everyone from bad drivers to prostitutes. Some of us just want to sit back and relax and watch other people go about their lives dying, disliking their jobs, and trying out for reality tv.

Then there’s our super-special citizens! Hal will introduce to you such Peepville luminaries as the digicam vigilante behind John.tv, the masterminds of Twitter, a Star Wars obsessed sex slave housewife blogger, and so much more! Don’t miss Hal’s guided tour down the infamous Peep Walk of Fame! Here you’ll meet the stars of Peepville: personas like Star Wars Kid, Dog Shit Girl, Washingtonienne, Dancing Cadet, and David After the Dentist. <?xml:namespace prefix =”” o />

But what’s Hal’s stake in this? The more Hal talks about Peepville, the more it becomes clear that he’s just another lonely, confused citizen looking for friendship, attention, community, and respect. Will Hal find what he’s looking for? When Hal invites his 700 Facebook friends to a party and only one shows up, it’s a wake-up call. Can Hal escape Peepville? Does he even want to?

Halshocked oh dear, they’re all going to be watching me…

Comments: -14-, Add yours…

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The Bloggist

Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...