Erin Hoy and Miki Nobumori
Anonymity and Intimacy that is not made public or shared with mass media is currently perceived as a negative, untrustworthy, and undesirable circumstance.
From the perspective of the Criminalization of Anonymity, not being under the constant gaze of the surveillance camera, most likely means that that person has something criminal to hide. Society sees surveillance cameras as a source of protection and believes that law abiding people have no reason to avoid the gaze. Due to the consistency and control that the camera has, every unusual action is criminalized by the observer, who then becomes the "witness" of crimes that are caught on tape. Acceptance from the public eye leads to lessening of suspicion and formation of trust, and anonymity and privacy becomes an offense to society.
Within the concept of the tyranny of intimacy, the historical roles of the elite and the lower classes and how they control their intimacy and publicity have been reversed. Whereas the elite and those in power of societies used to conduct very public lives, essentially broadcasting their every action to the rest of the lower classes, today, it is more a sign of privileged wealth and power for the elite now to withhold that publicity and lead very private lives. In contrast, in order to achieve that eventually secluded status of the aristocratic, the common public attempt to make their every action immediately and constantly public to society so that they can achieve that power. To emerge from the generalized mass of the common public that no one knows intimate details about, these everyday men and women attempt to make more than ever their lives public, constantly mediated for society to see, so that they can become actual individuals that people do know facts about. Once they ironically become heavily mediated, only then can these 'commoners' feel important, and able to see a documented, recorded, evidence of their lives able to be played back at any moment, shared, and disseminated to thousands as well as themselves, can they feel a sense of their own self worth, knowing they are being seen.
To be anonymous therefore would mean that a person would have no chance of achieving power or control of their lives, while actually giving up every intimacy of their lives, in order to try to eventually gain it back once recognized as an elite.
Within both concepts, it seems that people give in to giving up their intimacy in order to feel a sense of power and control. People feel validated, secure, and safe knowing that they are constantly being watched. Their existence is acknowledged because they are under the gaze of the camera.
Examples:
For example, an elementary school girl was caught on camera hiding her classmate's shoes in a locker, and was penalized with a yellow card (three of these results in a suspension). The punishment for what appears to be a young child's playful joke, seems a bit severe for an eight-year old. The act of searching for the culprit through camera surveillance suddenly turns the ordinary childish accident into what Frohne describes as a crime scene where “control criminalizes everyone and everything and makes the observer a witness of chimerical crimes (269).” Rather than giving the “guilty” child a chance to come clean on her own, the teacher immediately turns to the camera to inspect misconducts of the classroom and search out the “thief.” Camera surveillance may provide a sense of protection for everyone, but what is recorded on camera is often over-exaggerated and criminalizes any negative deed that is caught on tape.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1111826/Caught-classroom-spy-camera--primary-school-pupil-hid-girls-shoes.html
An example of this dichotomy can be seen in how celebrities choose to have private weddings, versus how everyday brides try to purposefully highly publicize their weddings,including every part of planning it before it even happens to be on reality tv, as in the show Bridezillas on WeTV, where brides act like celebrities, like larger than life divas, or how they feel celebrity brides should behave.
Secret celebrity Weddings of Summer 2010:
http://www.popeater.com/2010/07/23/celebrity-weddings-2010/
Bridezillas:
http://www.wetv.com/bridezillas?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=bridezillas&utm_campaign=TV_Bridezillas
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