VOYEUR

1 : one obtaining sexual gratification from observing unsuspecting individuals who are partly undressed, naked, or engaged in sexual acts; broadly : one who habitually seeks sexual stimulation by visual means
2 : a prying observer who is usually seeking the sordid or the scandalous

-Merriam Webster Online Dictionary

I want to talk about the etymology of the word Voyeur. It means one who sees. Most people immediately think of a peeping tom-some lecherous individual getting his jollies whilest spying on the opposite sex through a window or a keyhole, as they dress or have sex or whatever. The stereotypical voyeur isn't someone you'd choose to spend time with. And if you did, you'd probably want to run home and take a cleansing shower. Well, there are certainly those kind of folks around and unfortunately they're here to stay. But, those aren't the type of voyeurs I want to talk about. Let's talk about the new Voyeur-the 21st century kind. Let's talk about the individuals who see-EVERYTHING! Oh, by the way...I'm talking about you and I!

Have you got Facebook? Myspace? Twitter? Yeahhhh, you do...and you like to look at your friends, don't ya? And why not? They are more than happy to open the windows of their lives and let you take a fly-on-the-wall position. We don't call it voyeurism. Nooo, we're networking! But deep down we all know its the same thing, right? Where does this endless fascination with minutiae of other people's lives come from? Jane is pissed off at her hubby! Joe is drunk off his ass! Sally wonders when the games will stop! Tim is working for the weekend! Not only do we enjoy reading about what our friends are doing but we also like telling them what we think of what they're thinking/feeling/doing!

Do we really believe that other people are so much different from ourselves? More exciting? Funner? Happier? Sadder? Perhaps. God knows I've read some status messages and thought, "Jesus! Thank God I'm not like that poor slob!" (And there are certain details I still shake my head at and go, WHY would you want to tell someone THAT???") All I know is that I'm as addicted to social networking as much as you are or more.

I can't leave the house without my damn phone. I can't. It just doesn't happen! Oh hell, I'm not worried about missing a call-I rarely get any calls that are worth dragging a phone around for but if I didn't have my phone I couldn't find out what was going on on facebook or twitter. I might miss an important TXT message or IM! Oh hell to the NO on THAT!! Isn't that weird?

The more connected we become...the more isolated we become. Conversation is a fading art. Believe me, just because you tappity tappity tap an IM to someone doesn't mean that you're having real human interaction.

These screens in front of our faces are buffers and filters. They take a human being and reduce them to easily manipulated ones and zeros. When we're tired of them we can simply turn them off, shut them down, delete them from the hard drive. No mess. No fuss. It's clean. Nobody gets their hands "dirty". We can all be rock stars in our made-up digital kingdoms. Friends and buddies are our status symbols. The intimate details of our lives are our currency. Kings and queens are we in a one window tower.

The other night I previewed a movie called Surrogates. It took place in an alternate future where people lived out there lives in their homes controlling android avatars, or surrogates of themselves by thought transmission. They worked, partied, had sex, lived their entire lives that way. Their robotic counterparts were younger, more appealing versions of their true selves. The movie was so-so but the themes behind the film were interesting.

We have nothing like that right now. But someday we will. One thing about the human mind is it's constantly struggling to break the bonds of its fleshly prison. Our minds want to be set free. To be oneself is not enough anymore. It's a weirdly god-like thought to want to be the "all" and not the one. In the Bible god states that he is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. The first and the last. In other words god is saying he is all there is. Perhaps the digital age is our mimickery of that conceit. Maybe in some small portion of the universe it really is "all about me", and damn if we aren't fascinated and hypnotized by it!