We Live in Public
Josh Harris creates a show where he places many people into a building that is designed similar to a capsule hotel. Josh Harris is a powerful figure in the 90’s internet era. He was known for his extreme projects and how unethical his practices within the media were.
He placed over 100 people into this building where they were given minimal privacy between each other, as well as having 32 cameras placed everywhere including the toilet. These cameras were broadcasted on a live-stream website, weliveinpublic.com, where you could watch 24/7. This was an era of a technological boom. During this time period, multiple social media platforms were gaining traffic. All these people volunteered to be on this performance and it was interesting to see how many people were willing to give up their daily lives for this artistic performance and experiment.
One interesting quote I found was “You can see what everydoes. Who said that that’s necessarily bad?” It was an experiment to see how much people want them to see about them. I connected this with modern social media platforms such as Snapchat and the messaging tool Facetime. You can absolutely see what everyone does. It lead me to raising question such as how much can people find out about you. There have been instances where political leaders, rising to fame stars, and social media influencer have had information about them leaked or a past presence on social media leaked. These can influence the public’s perception about you. It usually contains negative impacts on how other’s view you and can even sway a political campaign. It just concerns me in a positive way.
One person stated how “This is exactly what the internet will be like, everyone will have a camera and a monitor and be able to do what we are in this prototype.” It was interesting connecting with what he way saying. Yes, we are able to do this today. We understand that we don’t want our entire lives on the internet. Some things are meant to be shared, and can be helpful to share with others but, some things are meant to be private. We have the ability to do this with a device we hold in our hands. Although, some people find that they want to share their lives on social media for example, social media influencers. We have a whole career out of what this show’s concept was based off of. Their entire lives are on the internet and they usually have livestreams where their fans can interact with them. It is interesting to see much the technology to be able to do this has changed and how simplistic we could do this now.
They had everything they needed. They had men or women, food, activities, drugs, and alcohol. It seemed at first, to be this perfect place where they could have fun and forget about the outside world. They were able to communicate with a various amount of people and enjoy meeting new people. They were having a great time the first few weeks and then tensions started to rise.
Josh’s childhood friend shared how he was into mind controlling, and wanted everyone to do what he wanted them to do. This showcased his true reasoning for doing this experiment. He wanted them to be like his lab rats. He wanted to create this groundbreaking experiment and in a way his “research” was useful. He shared how we shouldn’t live our lives on social media or through a lifestream and how it can negatively effect us.
Josh was abusing the harships that these poeple have been through. There were multiple people who had been through some of the hardest things anyone could ever imagine going through. There was a heroin addict who stated how the enviroment was a hard place to be sober in because of what was going on. There was a woman who had a suicide attempt. These people were stuggling in this enviroment and it all seemed like a game to Josh Harris. He was abusing these people and tried making this environment seem ideal and he wanted to build off of what these people went through. He was doing it for all of the wrong reasons.
They were becoming violent and “beast-like” they were dealing with a new sense of freedom and had no responsibilities at this time. They only were able to communicate with each other and tensions started to rise and the atmosphere was changing.
Josh broadcasted his relationship on the internet. They became distant from each other because they were both being impacted by the viewers and chatters as well as each other. They started to not have a connection and his girlfriend left. He was so relieved to have her leave at first, but after the experiment he regretted broadcasting his entire relationship on the internet.
Josh’s artwork was very controversial. He stated that he was “one of the first greatest artists of the 21st century.” He became so obsessed with these experiments and had the ability to control people throughout them and it started to show through within his personal wife. His mother was dying and all he did was send a video tape and arrived after she had died. Josh thew away his family for these experiments. He wanted to be this mastermind and although his family was proud of him for what he had accomplished he never spoke to them and never cared to visit them.
I’m left wondering what the physiological effects the experiment left on the people who spent a month inside of a bunker. Where there any complications with regrets or flashbacks latter in life? Were they proud of participating in this experiment?
Although, Josh’s discoveries were useful. It lead to live streaming platforms and social media platforms increasing their abilities. But, we also were able to see the dark side and how it can lead us to regret posting or sharing everything with an audience. It helped us become more aware as a society to know that not everything should be shared on social media and it is beneficial to keep some privacy, to remain human. The experiments that Josh made although unethical at time, lead to great research. Josh’s intentions were negative and he was a mastermind who enjoyed manipulation. I think that after this research it helps us reflect on how social media can end up controlling you life and you can become addicted to it. It gives you this false sense of confidence and can tear you back down. Our lived should not be broadcasted to strangers.
