Mitch Wagner has posted some thought-provoking ruminations on living in webcam-land, the exhibitionist impulse to stream every room in your house online.
Webcam houses are part of the way surveillance and recording have become commonplace in society. I'm not old at all but I remember the first time I heard my own recorded voice. My Dad brought home a tape-recorder from work – a big reel-to-reel thing the size of a briefcase – and we all got to play with it. It was a special occasion. I expect that a few years later, tape-recording was already pretty commonplace. I remember when I was a kid, on special occasions, departments stores would set up television cameras and you could see yourself on TV – there was always a crowd of people – a SMALL crowd, but still a crowd – doing goofy things in front of the camera and watching themselves.
(Thanks, Mitch!)
