Peeping Toms and Tammy’s

The “Canadian Criminal Code Part VI – Invasion of Privacy” states that “Every one who, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, wilfully intercepts a private communication is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.” Thirty-five words out of an 8,429-word document (not including the definitions). The other 8,394 words state when someone IS in fact allowed to invade your privacy.

Many of the reasons come under the categories of believed harmful intent or illegal intent, and that can obviously cover a lot of things. To be honest, I think them mostly rational grounds for invasion of privacy, “If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.” I believe in the statement more so now then ever before, due mostly to the growing exhibition on the Internet today. With a third of the entire population of Canada on Facebook(1), and the hundreds of millions around the world all connected to the Internet, sharing even the most intimate details of their lives to complete strangers, its hard to see why anyone would have cause to complain about these rules, nor even care about them.

I thought we had reached our pinnacle of Peeping Tom phenomenon when the UK based reality show “Big Brother” hit television screens in 2000 (the original in fact was a Dutch Big Brother which had started in 1999). However, this seemed only the catalyst for “Peep” shows everywhere as Big Brother alone spawned 42 versions of the show across the globe. It seems that now the reality TV “Peep” show has reached all new heights with its newest addition “The Jersey Shore”.

I cannot express how much of a “Fail” on society this show is. The fact that these “people” continue to make this show, and even worse, people continue to watch it, it’s just staggeringly disturbing. The “character” Snooki seems to embody the collective want of fame that every person in the world has. It makes me ponder, what’s next?

1. Niedzviecki, H. (2010). "The peep diaries: how we're learning to love watching ourselves and our neighbors"- Introducing Peep Culture.