068 - digital access is not intimacy
constant communication, AI companions and wired earphones
I have been recently obsssssesssed with the idea of digital intimacies. In a world where we are constantly online, I wonder about how our relationships are managed, or maintained or even formed. As someone working in social media and who self-describes as a chronically online, I am always wondering about the mismatch between our digital and physical selves, and what it means to form communities and friendships. I was finally triggered to write this article when I saw this post: whether digital access is a form of intimacy.
performed intimacy
All over the internet I keep seeing this playing out. Couch friends. Living room cafes. Organized fun. Friends who thrift. The 4 in the 5. All examples of FRIENDS!!! capturing their lives being freinds together!!! These doorcam roommates are a perfect example. It is a genuinely adorable video of two friends who have turned leaving and entering their house into a little ritual captured on camera. But, honestly, it made me think about how we change when there is a camera involved. Even a doorcam. Even in our own homes. Even when the audience is just each other. It’s so automatic now we don’t even notice.
Researchers Charlotte Reuß and Sophie Publig, have a name for this. They call it the Girl Online:
“It addresses the different frameworks through which we all operate in digital spaces, for instance, how many of our desires are externally projected onto us through algorithms, recommendations, or social media.…In the online sphere, we all occupy this position as we aim to be liked, to be seen, to be desired–in that sense, we are all girls.”
But there is a darker version of this, I can’t stop thinking about. With Meta Glasses being released, there have been more and more content of people being filmed without their knowledge. In particular, the victims of these videos are women, with ‘manfluencers’ using the lens to try and pick up unsuspecting women. No consent. No awareness. Just access, taken. In a tiktok video, a creator discusses the Meta Glasses creep and cites Susan Sontag, reminding us that even she, as a photographer saw photography as a violent act, as it served to take someone’s story away from them. The Meta Glasses story makes that feel less like theory and more like a warning. When we normalise the lens, the camera stops being something you choose and starts being something done to you.
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