Dog-shit-girl, meet New York Subway Perv
A while back I posted about Dan Hoyt’s penchant for exposing himself to people on the New York subway. Because I am vain, I went on Technorati and found out that this person pointed to my article in relation to Dog-shit-girl. Apparently the story is pretty famous: this woman was walking her dog and didn’t pick up its poop. When she was pressed to pick it up she told the pressers to fuck off. Someone took her picture and posted it on the web, villifying her. Somewhere along the way this small-time persecution turned into full-blown witch hunt: people found out where she lived, who her family was, where she was attending university and, basically, went after her.
So we have these two stories, both with a similar theme: we’re entering a new, incredibly fluid era of new, democratic media and clearly have no idea how to critique its narrative. As much as Flickr might feel like a corkboard for posting photos, it’s not. As much as blogging feels like writing an open letter to one’s friends, it’s not. By adding to these great big sticky gloms of new media we’re making waves that we can’t see that are overturning boats we don’t know about and lapping on far distant shores just over the horizon. And other people are using these waves against us already and we’re not ready. In short: do you know how to create a viral idea? Because other people do.
One of the great aspects of our fluid new media is detournement. Another is culture jamming. I think these two stories illustrate a more troubling aspect, however: we’re tapping into something very big and there’s not enough serious discussion in popular media about the effects here.
In the end, I’m not upset that the flasher was caught. I’m also not happy that a girl’s life was made hellish because she didn’t pick up dog poop and told someone to fuck off. But I do think that we’re not looking in the right places for solutions to these witch hunts and ripples.
BTW, this quote earns my vote for Scariest Thing I’ve Heard This Week:
“Thanks to technology, we are able to build a better society in which citizens are the police, prosecutors, and judges.”
Ever heard of the tyranny of the majority, pal? Doesn’t sound like a better society to me.
This page is a great recount of Dog-shit-girl’s trials and is the inspiration for this post. Thanks!