The royal buttocks

The shoreline below East Cliff, Hastings

 



I've been thinking a lot about privacy recently, particularly the way in which, through Facebook and Twitter, people are happy to sacrifice their personal privacy for the perceived benefit of belonging to a group.  Big Brother does something similar: the "housemates" give up all privacy for the time of their internment, knowing that their every move is being televised. 

Several things bother me about all of this.  Research is now showing that an increasing number of young people are suffering from depression and anxiety as a result of the conflict between the public image they are (or feel they ought to be) projecting on social networks and their real selves.    Cyberposing is rampant, with Facebook entries or tweets that say things like "In Rio, overlooking Ipanema beach with a daiquiri" or "Recovering from an evening in the bar of the Ritz in Paris".  Per-lease.  We know the truth: you're in your semi in Bromley, with a life as mundane as everyone else's.

So far as Big Brother is concerned, it's not just the being televised at every moment that bothers me: it's the removal of all the normal props of any sort of internal life, such as books, newspapers, television, even - yes - computers.  How do the housemates cope?  how does someone as intelligent as celebrity housemate Julian Clary not go bonkers in twenty-four hours?

The answer is, I suppose, that, unlike subscribers to the social networks, who are motivated largely by peer pressure, there is the attraction of filthy lucre (for the celebrities) or five minutes' fame (for the rest).  But do they really understand what they are letting themselves in for?

Which brings me to the royal buttocks.  The furore about publication of photos of the princely posterior is hugely artificial.  In spite of the 3,600 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission, I really don't think the majority of people care.  Anyone with half a brain cell must have realised that pictures of the event would find themselves onto the internet and into the press before you could say "download".  If the prince had wished, he or his minders could have frisked participants for cameras beforehand.  As far as I can see, his sacrifice of privacy was entirely voluntary.  Like the Big Brother contestants, however, he may not have realised the full extent of the consequences. 
  

Antony Mair