Spying on the neighbours

By Kyle Armstrong and ChristianWeek | June 29, 2010

I don't have a Facebook account. I'm an honest guy but something about sharing so much about myself makes me feel uncomfortable. Hal Niedzviecki's The Peep Diaries takes a look at the phenomenon of "over-sharing" including Facebook, reality television, the "blogosphere," amateur pornography, YouTube, cellphones, celebrity culture, CCTV cameras and other peep collateral.

It's an amusing road Niedzviecki wanders and many times I shook my head, amazed and perplexed. What makes Niedzviecki's book entertaining are his own anecdotes of entering into peep culture. Over a series of misadventures he unsuccessfully attempts to get on a reality TV show, starts a blog where he confesses he's not willing to be personal enough to be very interesting, sets up a webcam in his back alley and immediately becomes hooked to his monitor despite finding nothing of real interest. He even tracks his wife's every move via GPS and suddenly becomes obsessively paranoid about her safety.

When the author decides to hold a Facebook party and promises to buy for his hundreds of "Facebook only friends" he has the humiliating experience of having only one guest show. Along the way he meets intriguing figures who have fully submerged in the peep experience. The author is both enticed by the allure of receiving instant access to the lives of others and perplexed by the way peep culture changes his life and perceptions of both himself and others.

Niedzviecki also searches for the deeper reasons why we are so drawn to this peep culture. The overarching theme is the simultaneous longing for individuality and community. Peep culture provides us with a chance to feel better about our own lives, and an opportunity to share the experience in our own 15 minutes of fame. We are increasingly compelled to peer and leer at others while exposing ourselves. We've placed such high importance on our own feelings, our need for self expression, that we've lost sight of the fact that to fully experience community one must first submit to the great good of the whole.

The church can take the following to heart: peep culture is propagated by people who are searching for ways to express themselves, to stand out, all the while looking for community and ways to break free from isolation. The irony is that so many of these behaviours ultimately lead to isolation. Posting an update on Facebook is not the same as confession. Sharing a video on YouTube is not the same as sharing a cup of coffee.

The danger with this form of self-expression is that we are rarely exposing our true selves, instead choosing to expose ourselves as we would like to be seen. We seek to shape the image we present to others, and in turn willingly comply with the same illusion for the sake of others' acceptance of our own fallacy. Our profile picture on Facebook isn't really what we look like; we have less than perfect bodies, sometimes we smell bad, some of us stutter, have bad breath, forget to comb our hair, show a little too much when we bend at the waste. And our real friends know that.

Despite its often-lighthearted approach, The Peep Diaries sheds light on the darker corners of the rapid changes in how we communicate, the repercussions of such a shift in paradigm and the root causes for its embrace.