The [insert your name here] Show
The Truman Show is one of the few movies that really captivated me. It is one of those movies that you find yourself thinking about every now and then, even though it has been years since the last time I watched it. I believe most of the people who watched this movie wonder if what happened to the main character, Truman Burbank, could be happening to them. Could it be that one of us, or maybe all of us, are being constantly under surveillance by cameras at the very moment? The film tells the story of a baby that was legally adopted by a corporation to be a part of a television reality show. As time goes by the baby grows in studio set that depicts an American town filled with actors that pretended to be part of Truman’s life. These actors are conscious that they are role playing while Truman has absolutely no idea he is being filmed to be part of a show. Truman’s life is constantly monitored and carefully observed by millions of people in what was the number one television show in the world, The Truman Show.
From time to time I wonder if I am part of The Daniel Show and if everyone in an alternate world is observing my every move. As I reminisced this movie for our assignment, I also analyzed E.J. Westlake’s writing, Friend Me if You Facebook. The subtitle read “Generation Y and Performative Surveillance.” The combination of words of “Performative” and “Surveillance” quickly brought back recollections of the Truman Show where the main character’s life was just a big performance and he was constantly under surveillance. My Facebook page is constantly under the surveillance of the 976 friends that I have listed plus anyone who comes along every once in a while to take a look at my wall messages. And does my Facebook page accurately depict my real life or is it just a performance? Is Facebook the network that would be willing to pick up The Daniel Show?
Westlake analyzes the addition of the Newsfeed to the Facebook site. Westlake was puzzled to know that now everyone could carefully analyze his every move; from his relationship status, to his photos, to his likes and interests, to his conversations with other people, everything was posted at Facebook for public scrutiny. To a much lesser scale, Westlake’s astonishment was directly related to Truman’s feeling the moment he discovered everyone in the world had access to his personal life. In the excerpt, Westlake mentioned how Facebook users referenced Sting’s lyrics: “Every breath you take, Every move you make, Every bond you break, Every step you take, I’ll be watching you”. Those lyrics are directly compatible with the storyline of the film because even when Truman is sleeping or in the bathroom people can monitor and watch him.
The life one appears to have on Facebook can be very different from the life that person actually leads. Westlake mentions all applications Facebook offer, such as making groups, poking, pictures and liking. A lot of people who use Facebook are somewhat afraid of using these applications in a negative way, or even in a boring way. The majority of people refrain from putting bad pictures of themselves, liking posts of people they barely know, or posting mundane statuses or comments like “I am driving” or “I am working.” People want to be seen at their best on Facebook and therefore only post glamorous pictures and upload statuses that make them seem cool like “So wasted! One hell of a party last night!” People refrain from mentioning ordinary events such as staying home on Saturday night because they believe their “friends” might find such comments not interesting. It does not captivate attention. Some people might counter argue saying that they are themselves on Facebook and their Facebook accurately depicts their persona. Sure, it can be reality, but just like Cristoph, the creator of The Truman Show, said, everything in the show is real, it is just controlled reality. People on Facebook do control themselves in order to get more attention or avoid the negative limelight.
Unlike Facebook users, Truman himself is not seeking for attention, but since producers want to increase the show’s ratings, they provoke situations. Therefore, even though the show mimics real life, it is in fact a way more interesting life that ordinary people live. They create events like his father dying in the middle of the sea during a tragic storm and later his return from the dead after 20 years only to boost ratings. If Truman led a boring life, no one would care to watch, but the matter of fact is that most of us do have boring lives and watching our every move could be very tedious.
Westlake makes reference to the way Facebook makes the larger part of its incredible revenue, advertisements and propaganda of companies and firms. As a new marketing strategy these companies and firms create Facebook pages for themselves to interact with the network’s users. In The Truman Show, the program’s revenue, which is said to be the same as a country’s gross domestic product, is made solely through advertisements. However the show does not take one commercial break. All advertisement is done within ordinary events of the main character’s life, through interaction with Truman. Everything is incorporated into his daily activities, from the cocoa from Nicaragua that his fake wife Meryl serves him to the beer Truman enjoys with his fake best friend Marlon. These interactions are similar with the digital interactions I can have on my Facebook page. If I go to the Doritos page and like it, instantly everyone in my network will know “Daniel likes Doritos.” Similarly, if Truman likes a kind of beer everyone will know “Truman likes this beer.”
In one of the first moments of the film, one of the Truman Show’s producers states that some people watch the show so that they do not feel lonely. More often than not people use Facebook when they are alone. This usage gives them a sense of inclusion to a large group of people that they could not have otherwise. Westlake mentions that people still go on Facebook if there is nothing new to see, and people in the film will still tune in to the show if Truman is just sleeping or working on his garden.
Westlake goes on to proving how obsessed people are with Facebook and how some people even compare it to crack. He says that people spend incredible amounts of productive time online and that spending time on Facebook has become one of America’s largest pastimes. Westlake refers to sociologists that believe Facebook is causing a large dysfunction in the generation Y’s capacity to interact with people in person.
In the movie, there are various fans of The Truman Show that watch it nonstop. It leads us to assume that like Facebook, The Truman Show is also one of America’s largest pastimes. The movie shows two old ladies who seem like they never leave the TV and live through Truman’s life. It also shows a man in the tub who seems like he barely has any life of his own because he is too caught up experiencing Truman’s life. Some of the fans of the show are waitresses that seldom work in their shift hours because they cannot unglue their eyes from Truman’s life. The same one Facebook caused dysfunctions in society, depriving them from living normal lives and instead being obsessed with other people’s moves, so did The Truman Show.
One odd thing about the film is that even though The Truman Show was extremely well received by the public and there were many obsessive fans that even had Truman pillows, when Truman discovers that his life was all just a big scam, these fans are ecstatic. They seem to be very happy for Truman even though that essentially meant that their favorite show was over. It is interesting to see how similar the people’s perception to Facebook is. Every day people become more aware of the harm Facebook causes, how completely unnecessary it is, and how as Westlake refers to it, “creepy” it is. The subject of how Facebook is bad is discussed every day in classrooms and even in medical studies. Being regarded as someone who is always on Facebook (Facebook creep) has a negative connotation tied to it. But then why won’t people stop? Why didn’t people stop watching the Truman show if deep inside they knew it wasn’t right to maintain Truman a prisoner for their entertainment?
The outrage that Westlake described when people first heard of the Newsfeed was a mere sign of hypocrisy. From personal experience I can affirm that every time Facebook ads a new feature or changes its design everyone becomes infuriated, but the matter of fact is that people quickly gets used to it and soon they love the new style. The Facebook trend is that every time the site adapts or renews it becomes easier to track people. Recently the new Facebook has a mini newsfeed on right hand side of the screen that updates itself every second showing you every move that is made by everyone in your network.
People need to realize that they take enjoyment in being able to see other people, observe them, and analyze them. We feel like Christoph, like we have the power to oversee everything that happens and monitor people. What girl does not monitor her ex-boyfriend’s profile? What guy never checks out the profile of a girl he thinks is cute? Just before college when students could not find their future roommates on Facebook began to panic. The same applies in the other direction, who isn’t happen when their status gets multiple likes, or who dose not feel better when a lot of people comment how good they look on their new profile picture. People need to know and need to be known.
The movie The Truman Show came out in 1998, which leads be to believe that the writer of the movie, Andrew Niccol, must have been psychic. The movie came out six years before Facebook was created. The show in the movie is basically a largely exaggerated version of Facebook. Niccol must have really foreseen the drastic reductions of privacy that the government and other institutions would eventually make sure occurred every year. The movie was released even before the Patriot Act was implemented. The movie was a sign of awareness of how society would eventually function, by everyone knowing everyone else’s business. Despite the drastic insinuations the film took on, what Niccol predicted came true. This rise in lack of privacy is what drove Ed Westlake tone warns people about how “creepy” Facebook is. Both Niccol in 1998 and Westlake in 2006 try to advise people about what society might become is some of our values or lost to an alternative, yet artificial, way of interacting with other humans.
The result is that nowadays privacy barely exists and being invisible is more impossible than it ever was. You are now the star of your show and the audience for that show is quickly rising and hungry for some action. The pressure is greater than ever for you not to let the ratings fall.