Privacy is a thing of the past

For today’s generation, thoughts and feelings are to be shared with and revealed to others, not confined to themselves or confidantes. This is one of the conclusions of Ellis Cashmore, author of Celebrity Culture, the new edition of which published this week.

“Celebrities, fans and ex-Cistercian monks have this in common: they have discovered rapture in talking,” says Cashmore. “There is, after all, an intense pleasure or joy in being able to express thoughts and feelings by articulate sounds or words on the screen.”

He argues that a combination of social media, especially twitter, confessional tv shows, like Jeremy Kyle’s, and, most importantly, celebrities who are willing to surrender any remnant of an off-stage life, has encouraged a generation to portion out what used to pass as private lives. “Twitter is the most obvious medium for sharing intimate details, but we can trace the end of privacy back to 1991, when the Jerry Springer show launched.” In its day Springer’s show was revolutionary, inviting ordinary people to talk on tv about aspects of their lives, often in embarrassing detail. Cashmore says: “The show changed the way we thought about privacy. Initially, it shocked audiences, but, after a while, it seemed commonplace to listen to people discuss their humiliating secrets in front of millions. And the sting was that the audience would gladly swap places and bring their own skeletons out of the cupboard. Since then, the guilt has been taken out of guilty secrets.”

Cashmore’s account of the origins and development of celebrity culture emphasizes how we now feel entitled to know everything about a celebrity’s life; and an aspiring celeb knows they have to strike a Faustian bargain and give up their privacy in exchange for fame. “Celebrities revel in being at the center of discourses; the words spoken and circulated about them are testimony to their ability to engross others.”

“Fans luxuriate in creating and perpetuating those discourses, perhaps as a way of empowering themselves; their words or lack of them can make or break celebrities. And ex-monks? Well, having taken and, later, ended a vow of silence, they must savor the sweet subtlety of words as ways of conveying what’s in their heads and hearts.”

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