Digital Culture, Webcam Girls and Celebrity Culture - Research Paper Example

Digital Culture, Webcam Girls and Celebrity Culture Introduction Fame, publi or recognition from others is a basic need for the people. In fact, most of the human actions are motivated with the thirst for attaining fame. For example, if we check the Guinness book of records we can see lot of unimaginable activities done by human beings in order to achieve records and fame. Publicity is a social need associated with human life Digital culture is a new term which has entered the world a couple of decades before with the development of digital electronics. Analogue equipments have given way for the much compact digital equipments and the human culture also has started to change with the introduction of digital equipments. For example, mobile phones have revolutionized the world of communication and the human culture has undergone drastic changes as far as communication is concerned. It is easy for the people to contact anybody, who does possess a mobile phone instantly, instead of writing a letter or conveying the message using other means of communication. Every aspect of social life is connected with some kind of digital equipments such as computers; mobile phones, Television, DVD players, Digital cameras etc and we can safely say that at present we are living under a digital culture. ‘Digital culture thus deals with the political, social and legal aspects of living in a society increasingly dominated by digital communication and media’ (Digital culture) Digital culture has changed lot of social concepts and the celebrity concept also has been changed a lot because of it. Previously the celebrities were successful in catching the attention of the public through the media like Television, news papers, sports activities and cinema. But the introduction of internet has revolutionized the world of communication and it is widely used as the primary medium in order to attain fame and publicity. In fact internet has produced a separate segment of celebrities’ called “Webcam Girls” which entirely different from that of the concepts of conventional celebrities’. As per the advancements in science and technology, life styles and cultures are also changing drastically. The old celebrity cultures have been given way for new ones. People, who were reluctant in exposing their body publicly, are now ready to do it in order to attain money and publicity. Webcam girls are engaged in lot of sex related activities publicly in order to attain fame.This paper focusing mainly on digital culture and webcam girls, in order to explore the new forms of celebrity culture. Celebrity culture “Celebrity is a “person who is known for his well-knownness.” He is the “human pseudo-event” who has been manufactured for us but who has no substantiality” (GABLER, p.3) Celebrities are people who attract society which is hungry for entertainment. In a stressful world, people are always looking for some kind of entertainment in order to release their tensions. Celebrities and their activities are a blessing for such people. Celebrities can help the people to forget about their problem filled life at least for a temporary period. Such people will be adorned by the public. Conventional entertainers are the likeliest candidates for celebrity. They come equipped with publicity and a narrative” (GABLER, p.7) Celebrities are normally entertainers. But they can be from other segments of public life as well. For example, film and sports personalities are celebrities who can entertain the public whereas personalities like literature writers and political leaders are celebrities who are famous not for the entertainment, but for their contributions to the society. Within studies of celebrity culture, two main approaches dominate: the sociological and the semiotic. The sociological views stars and the mechanisms that create and promote them as the phenomenon; their work is secondary and inconsequential. The semiotic reverses this, and draws on linguistic theories to read celebrities through the meanings and significations attached to their work. In recent years, these two approaches have merged, as interdisciplinary approaches have gained in acceptance, and as more disciplines, such as psychology, have begun to accept celebrity as a topic that can produce fruitful results. (Harmon, p.99) Sociological views of celebrity culture were mainly dependant on the charismatic figure of the person rather than the meanings and significations attached to their work. For example, miss world context has created many celebrities all over the world, not because of their meaningful contributions to the society, but purely because of their beauty and figure. These celebrities are public figures only because of their beauty and once their beauty diminishes or when they become aged, nobody will remember them or think about them. Semiotic approach on the other hand values the contributions of a person to the society in order to promote him as a celebrity. For example, film personalities and sports personalities are considered as celebrity figures because of their shear talent and contributions to the society in different ways. Celebrity concepts have been changing gradually ever since it was evolved. The celebrity concept of twenty first century is far different from that of the twentieth century. Even private activities have been utilized for becoming a celebrity at present. It is a fact that most of the people will get bored if they were exposed to the same thing continuously. For example, even a film actor cannot keep his celebrity image for a long time if acts in similar roles in a similar style for a longer period. Public always looking for changes and in order to catch the public attraction, conventional methods are sufficient enough at present which forced the evolution of a new celebrity culture related to Webcam girls. Webcam girls “As with many new technologies, webcams and webcam chat found early commercial adoption and aggressive technology advancement through use by the pornography industry. The adult industry required live images and requested a Dutch developer to write a piece of software that could do this without requiring web browser plug-ins. This led to the birth of the live streaming webcam, which is still available in various forms today” (Webcam History) Webcam sites transmit live naked images and video streams mainly of adult females just like a reality show in television. The sex related information or images always attracted adults because of their biological and psychological specialities. “Webcam girls (yes, there are also webcam guys) use cameras connected to their computers to transmit images of themselves to whomever wants to see them. Often people will connect their own cameras and have a two-way video connection with the webcam girl. Much of what happens is of a sexual nature” (Webcam Girls: Will They Destroy Western Civilization?) When we hear about the term webcam girls, obviously our thoughts will go around sex related things. We know that webcam girls are performing sex related activities rather than any constructive or educational activities. Nobody wants to reveal their private life or their thirst for watching sex movies or nude webcam girls. Though publicly nobody may accept the webcam girl’s culture as a positive one, privately, many people watch these girls performing sexual acts. Human sexuality has many aspects related to physiology and psychology. Biological or physiological aspects of sexuality are related to the continuity of human generation in the world. Without sexual relationship, it is impossible to sustain the generations by living things. Nature has given the sexual attraction irrespective of the ages, to all the living things in order to sustain their species on earth. Though many habits and characters of human being are changing gradually, the thirst for knowing more about sex and sexual relationship has not changed much. Psychological aspects of sexuality are related to the relaxation of mental stress. Sexual relationship is one way for the living things to release their emotional energies. All the above factors contributed heavily to the evolution of “Webcam girls” celebrity culture. Why do webcam girls do what they do, besides the obvious potential to make money? Why do people pay money to communicate with these girls? In order to find answers to the above questions it is essential for us to analyze these issues based on a psychological perspective. Webcam girls are mainly motivated by the money they are receiving from exposing their body. Most of the girls appearing on webcams are coming from poor economic backgrounds and they need more money to meet the expenses of the changing life styles. Most of them think nothing wrong with their actions and they consider webcam cam shows as an easy way to acquire a substantial amount of money. Apart from money motivation some girls may derive some psychological pleasures from such live shows. The viewers of their show may make good comments about their beauty and physical attributes which may make them happier. Females derive more pleasure once somebody praises their beauty. Beauty concepts are more prominent among females than males. It is often said that making a female happier is an easy task compared to males because of their increased infatuation towards positive comments about their physical attributes. Webcam girls and visits to them are looked upon negatively by most of the society. But still privately people are using such sites in order to derive pleasure. Most of the social rules and regulations are not acceptable to a free person; but he was forced to obey such rules because of fear of punishments and the loss of fame. So each person has a public and private behavior. Both these behaviors may be entirely different also. A true gentleman behave differently if gets proper opportunity in his private life. The sex scandal associated with former US president Bill Clinton is one of the best examples to prove the difference between one’s private and public life. “Visitors have an opportunity not just to observe the endless life details of another human being from a safe distance, but to watch that person’s life move along without any editorial reviews or constraints any time of the day and night” (Wallace, p.xxii) Celebrity life is what most of the people like to have. For majority of the people celebrities are idols and they try to imitate the celebrity life as much as possible. Webcams are providing an opportunity for the viewers to watch the private life of their adorned celebrities. There will not be any censoring or restrictions as in the case of a film. Studies by the Kaiser Family Foundation and other research organizations show that sexual content aimed at children has increased steadily since the 1990s, Durham said. Times were prosperous, Britney Spears emerged as the sexy schoolgirl on MTV, and teens had plenty of disposable income -- a perfect alignment for marketers trying to expand into a new demographic. By 2007, 8- to 12 year-olds consumer spending was $170 billion worldwide, according to the market research firm Euro monitor.(The Profit Motive Behind The Sexualization Of Tween Girls) Teens are mostly attracted by the live shows of the webcam girls. Their adolescent period is the most dangerous time of their life because of the increased influence of their biological and psychological needs over their life. It is difficult for them to segregate between the good and evils during this period and they are ready spent much on satisfying their psychological needs. The current teens are getting more money compared to the 20 th century teens and they utilize it for watching webcam shows in order to satisfy their psychological needs. The influence of rap and pop culture also contributed heavily to the changing trends in the life styles of the teens. Britney spears like pop stars reveals their body through their music albums which encourages the teens to think in terms of viewing the webcam in order to know more about the private life of the celebrities. Dangers associated with webcam broadcasting Webcam culture has created a dangerous phenomenon in the current world. Morality and ethics are diminishing from the world because of webcam celebrity culture. It is not possible to control the spreading of sexual and violent movies through internet because of the wide reach of internet and the advanced technologies which can penetrate any firewalls. Teens exposed to webcam culture may not be matured enough to control their emotions and they will try to implement their webcam experience in real life also which will be dangerous to the society. We are already living in a world of abuses like domestic abuse, female abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, etc. Webcam culture can boost such abusive culture further. Apparently the world’s first webcam suicide has taken place, on Justin.tv, a video service that allows users to broadcast themselves from their webcams. After posting a link to his webcam on the forums at Bodybuilding.com, Abraham Biggs, 19, died Wednesday from a toxic combination of opiates and benzodiazepines. It’s not clear how many people actually watched Abraham die online, but police found his body yesterday at 3:30 pm, nearly 12 hours after he started blogging about his intent to die (Grohol) It is impossible for teens to control their emotions. Everybody wants to put a stamp on this world before they leave this world. It is impossible for such persons to have publicity for normal activities. So they will try to test something different even if their lives were in jeopardy. Webcam is a popular medium attracted by a many people irrespective of children, youths or the elder ones. Reality shows are currently conquering all the transmitting medias like Webcam and television and the program producers spend millions of dollars in order to find out variety programs which may catch the public attraction. Webcam, by far the most powerful media, as far as wide reach are concerned, is used by program producers to accumulate revenue. Conclusions Celebrities are people who attract people mainly because of their entertainment activities. Film personalities, sports personalities and literature writers are traditional celebrities. But the introduction of advanced technologies like computers and internet has produced another kind of culture called digital culture. It is impossible to live in a world without the influence of digital culture, at present or in future also. Digital culture has changed the whole concept of celebrity culture with the introduction of webcam girls. The webcam girls are different from traditional celebrities with respect to the way of their functioning. They entertain the public by exposing their body through webcam. People like to see webcam girls in action privately rather than publicly. On the other hand other celebrities and their activities are open to the public and there is no secrecy in their activities. The traditional celebrity concepts were undergone drastic changes with the introduction of digital culture and webcam girl performances. Webcam girl’s celebrity culture is not good for the society because of the long term negative impacts it can cause to the public life. Teens who are vulnerable to emotional control, may act violently because of the webcam girl’s influence. It is difficult to control the webcam culture because of its wide influence over the society irrespective of gender, or age. Works Cited 1. “Digital Culture”. 29 July 2009. 2. Harmon, Kristine. “Celebrity Culture”. 29 July 2009. 3. “Webcam History”. 29 July 2009. 4. “Webcam Girls: Will They Destroy Western Civilization?”. 2006. 29 July 2009. 5. “The Profit Motive Behind The Sexualization Of Tween Girls”. 2008. 29 July 2009. 6. Wallace Patricia M., “The Psychology of the Internet”. 29 July 2009. 7. Grohol, John M PsyD.2008. “First Live Webcam Suicide”. 29 July 2009. 8. GABLER, NEAL. “Toward a New Definition of Celebrity”. 29 July 2009. Read More