Ostracism: (1) In ancient Greece, the temporary banishment of a citizen by popular vote, (2) A rejection or exclusion by general consent, as from society
"The confession makes great television because it defines the moment where
the guard is lowered, where the anonymity of the private self is suddenly
revealed. It also becomes the stock material for the Internet. Personal
webpages become the location for revealing a new version of the
private/public self. What links these public representations of identity
through revelation is that they presume an audience. The presumption of an
audience is the way that contemporary identity is now more connected to a
clearly identified desire to be notorious. The contemporary self demands
outside and anonymous recognition for internal validation -- in other words
a television audience or reasonable facsimile. Fame and identity intertwine
and the confession becomes the channel through which the individual can
make the private self clearly public."
P.David Marshall "Confession and Identity" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1.3 1998
"William Sheehan does not like the police. He expresses his views about what he calls police corruption in Washington State on his Web site, where he also posts lists of police officers' addresses, home phone numbers and Social Security numbers."
"State officials say those postings expose officers and their families to danger and invite identity theft. But neither litigation nor legislation has stopped Mr. Sheehan, who promises to expand his site to include every police and corrections officer in the state by the end of the year."
"The law generally draws no distinction between information that is nominally public but hard to obtain and information that can be fetched with an Internet search engine and a few keystrokes." A web site causes unease in police by Adam Liptak, New York Times, July 12, 2003
Ostracise the jailed
Who is in jail in Snohomish county? http://www.co.snohomish.wa.us/jail/Reports/daily_jail_register.htm
Ostracise rioters
UW Disturbance Task Force Photos:
In the early morning hours of Sunday, September 28th, a riot occurred at NE 47th St and 18 Ave NE, on Greek Row of the University of Washington. Damaged during the incident were private cars, several police cars, a fire hydrant and street signs. Several robberies also occurred as well as fist fights and rock throwing. The Seattle Police Department is looking for videos and/or photographs of the above incidents. If you were a victim or a witness that has yet to contact the Seattle Police, please call the Tip Line at (206) 233-2666. http://www.cityofseattle.net/police/uwtaskforce/
IT was the sort of confession that a decade ago might have been scribbled in a teenager's diary, then quietly tucked away in a drawer: "Somewhat recently," wrote a boy who identified himself only as Zach, 16, from Tennessee, on his personal Web page, "I told my parents I was gay." He noted, "This didn't go over very well," and "They tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me, and they 'raised me wrong.' " But what grabbed the attention of Zach's friends and subsequently of both gay activists and fundamentalist Christians around the world who came across the entry, made on May 29, was not the intimacy of the confession. Teenagers have been outing themselves online for years, and many of Zach's friends already knew he was gay. It was another sentence in the Web log: "Today, my mother, father and I had a very long 'talk' in my room, where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist Christian program for gays."
Gay Teenager Stirs a Storm The NY Times, July 17, 2005
Self ostracism: Singing along
Mr. Brolsma, a pudgy guy from Saddle Brook, made a video of himself this fall performing a lip-synced version of "Dragostea Din Tei," a Romanian pop tune, which roughly translates to "Love From the Linden Trees." He not only mouthed the words, he bounced along in what he called the "Numa Numa Dance" - an arm-flailing, eyebrow-cocked performance executed without ever once leaving the chair.
In December, the Web site newgrounds.com, a clearinghouse for online videos and animation, placed a link to Mr. Brolsma on its home page and, soon, there was a river of attention. "Good Morning America" came calling and he appeared. CNN and VH1 broadcast the clip. Parodists tried their own Numa Numa dances online. By yesterday, the Brolsma rendition of "Love From the Linden Trees" had attracted nearly two million hits on the original Web site alone.
Internet Fame Is Cruel Mistress for a Dancer of the Numa Numa
The NY Times, February 26, 2005
Self ostracism: Pornography
Justin's dark coming-of-age story is a collateral effect of recent technological advances. Minors, often under the online tutelage of adults, are opening for-pay pornography sites featuring their own images sent onto the Internet by inexpensive Webcams. And they perform from the privacy of home, while parents are nearby, beyond their children's closed bedroom doors.
The business has created youthful Internet pornography stars - with nicknames like Riotboyy, Miss Honey and Gigglez - whose images are traded online long after their sites have vanished. In this world, adolescents announce schedules of their next masturbation for customers who pay fees for the performance or monthly subscription charges. Eager customers can even buy "private shows," in which teenagers sexually perform while following real-time instructions.
Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World
The NY Times, December 19, 2005
Self ostracism: Sexual fantasies
Shot on a shoestring budget of $4,000, the film, which stars Ms. Angel (her stage name), is a series of hard-core sex scenes strung together without benefit of a plot. It burnishes its hipster credentials by incorporating music by the Brooklyn band Turing Machine and Tim Armstrong of Rancid. Interviews with bands like Dillinger Escape Plan and My Chemical Romance are interspersed with the sex.
Holding up the DVD's cover, on which she appears with her back arched and wearing nothing but a few straps around her hips that suggest a thong, Ms. Angel described the BurningAngel ethos as "a unity of sex and rock 'n' roll" but quickly qualified the statement: "Porn is more punk than most punk music," she concluded.
For Mr. Fontaine, 26, who does not appear on the Web site or in the BurningAngel video, the reasons he became a pornographer are less complex.
"We were sick of blond hair and breast implants," he said. "We wanted to put our sexual fantasies on video."
Wearing Nothing but Attitude
The NY Times, May 1, 2005
Ostracise Sex Offenders
California this month unveiled a Web site that lets residents search their neighborhoods for registered sex offenders, and millions of people were fast to consult the records. Some of the complaints are that the site, with more than 63,000 listings, leaves out 22,000 more names and contains incomplete or inaccurate information. Through the site, offenders can be found by ZIP code, city, county, name, address and proximity to elementary schools and parks. Those convicted of the most serious crimes can also be identified by clicking on blue dots on maps that indicate exact or approximate street addresses. Many of the entries include photographs and information about gender, race, age and physical identifiers like tattoos and scars.
Sex-Offender List Draws Quick Criticism The NY Times, December 26, 2004
Ostracise Restaurants
Find information on the latest inspection of each of New York City's more than 20,000 restaurants. Conduct specific searches by restaurant name or zip code. Information can also be sorted alphabetically and by borough, neighborhood, inspection score, and by those who have who have received a Golden Apple Award from the DOHMH, a sign of excellence in food safety.
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Restaurant Inspection Results Online
Self ostracism: Guilt
Online confessors are like flashers. They exhibit themselves anonymously and publicly, with little consideration for you, the audience. Browse some of the confessionals on the Web: grouphug.us (a simple log), notproud.com (organized by deadly sin) or dailyconfession.com (where you can barely find the confessions for all the promotional stuff). You can see for yourself. For instance, the most recent confessions tend to be the most graphically and ethically hip. They look like the work of Barbara Kruger, Damien Hirst or Sophie Calle. "I want to be anorexic," says one card with a photo of a skeletal woman, "but I can't stop eating."
And for some reason many of the secrets posted on May 8 follow a certain form, a confession followed by a coda with a dash more guilt: "I don't care about recycling. (But I pretend I do.)" "I had sex with strangers for money. And I liked it." "I hate loving families... Because I don't have one."
Bless Me, Blog, for I've Sinned The NY Times, May 31, 2005
Ostracising the baby
The world's most thankless occupation, parenthood, has never inspired so much copy. For the generation that begat reality television it seems that there is not a tale from the crib (no matter how mundane or scatological) that is unworthy of narration. Approximately 8,500 people are writing Web logs about their children, said David L. Sifry, the chief executive of Technorati, a San Francisco company that tracks Web logs. That's more than twice as many baby blogs as last year. While it is impossible to know if the reader of Good Housekeeping circa 1955 would have been recording her children's squabbles on http://www.myperfectchild.com/, had the Internet arrived half a century earlier, it is hard to imagine her going head to head with Ben MacNeil, who has chronicled his year-and-a-half-old daughter's every nap, bottle feeding and diaper change (3,379, at last check) on the Trixie Update (trixieupdate.com).
Mommy (and Me) The NY Times, January 30, 2005
Ostracising women
The truth, it turned out, was not as dangerous but was alarming nevertheless: someone had put a video camera below a street grate on the Upper East Side, apparently placed to look up the skirts of women walking past, the police said. Hidden cameras are a staple of Internet pornography sites, but a police spokesman, Lt. Eugene Whyte, said he did not know of a camera being used in a public space like a sidewalk before.
The discovery repulsed women who live or work near the corner.
"It's disgusting. It's an invasion of a woman's privacy," said Johanna Roberts, 38, a real estate manager wearing a long denim skirt yesterday. "My God. That's horrible. I hope they find him. To me, it's a pervert. I guess I have to be a little more careful now walking on the street."
A Camera Below a Grate? The Police Suspect a Peeper's Work The NY Times May 19, 2005
Ostracising men
Web sites like DontDateHimGirl.com, ManHaters.com and TrueDater.com are dedicated to outing bad apples or just identifying people who may not be rotten but whose dating profiles are rife with fiction.
Framed in pink, the DontDateHimGirl.com site allows a woman to post the name and photograph of a man she says has wronged her, along with a short but often pungent synopsis of how precisely she was aggrieved. The suspicious or merely curious can hunt for a cheater by typing a name into the search engine. Women can also send e-mail messages through the site if they want to ask more pointed questions about a particular cad. In a slight nod to fairness, men who disagree with the characterization can write a rebuttal to be posted alongside their names.
(Name Here) Is a Liar and a Cheat The NY Times, February 15, 2006
Ostracising everyone
After blogging came photo blogging and then, suddenly last year, video blogging. Video bloggers, also known as vloggers, are people who regularly post videos on the Internet, creating primitive shows for anyone who cares to watch. Some vlogs are cooking shows, some are minidocumentaries, some are mock news programs and some are almost art films. Most simply are records of ordinary life. The Das Vlog recently demonstrated the virtues of urinating in the bathroom sink. Village Girl has posted a video of her 2-year-old dancing with a friend. Josh Leo taped himself browsing through his old baby pictures and art projects. (The first book he wrote as a child, "No," is excellent.) Fat Girl From Ohio is a man blogging largely about his wife's pregnancy.
Watch Me Do This and That Online The NY Times July 25, 2005
Online confessors are like flashers. They exhibit themselves anonymously and publicly, with little consideration for you, the audience. Browse some of the confessionals on the Web: grouphug.us (a simple log), notproud.com (organized by deadly sin) or dailyconfession.com (where you can barely find the confessions for all the promotional stuff). You can see for yourself. For instance, the most recent confessions tend to be the most graphically and ethically hip. They look like the work of Barbara Kruger, Damien Hirst or Sophie Calle. "I want to be anorexic," says one card with a photo of a skeletal woman, "but I can't stop eating."
And for some reason many of the secrets posted on May 8 follow a certain form, a confession followed by a coda with a dash more guilt: "I don't care about recycling. (But I pretend I do.)" "I had sex with strangers for money. And I liked it." "I hate loving families... Because I don't have one."
Web sites like DontDateHimGirl.com, ManHaters.com and TrueDater.com are dedicated to outing bad apples or just identifying people who may not be rotten but whose dating profiles are rife with fiction.
Framed in pink, the DontDateHimGirl.com site allows a woman to post the name and photograph of a man she says has wronged her, along with a short but often pungent synopsis of how precisely she was aggrieved. The suspicious or merely curious can hunt for a cheater by typing a name into the search engine. Women can also send e-mail messages through the site if they want to ask more pointed questions about a particular cad. In a slight nod to fairness, men who disagree with the characterization can write a rebuttal to be posted alongside their names.
(Name Here) Is a Liar and a Cheat The NY Times, February 15, 2006
After blogging came photo blogging and then, suddenly last year, video blogging. Video bloggers, also known as vloggers, are people who regularly post videos on the Internet, creating primitive shows for anyone who cares to watch. Some vlogs are cooking shows, some are minidocumentaries, some are mock news programs and some are almost art films. Most simply are records of ordinary life. The Das Vlog recently demonstrated the virtues of urinating in the bathroom sink. Village Girl has posted a video of her 2-year-old dancing with a friend. Josh Leo taped himself browsing through his old baby pictures and art projects. (The first book he wrote as a child, "No," is excellent.) Fat Girl From Ohio is a man blogging largely about his wife's pregnancy.