SALON

Tuesday, Jun 21, 2011 9:01 PM UTC

Do the Kissing Couple represent an end to public privacy?

The Vancouver couple whose smooch was seen round the world end up on "Today" in record time. Thanks, Internet

By

Topics: Internet Culture, Going Viral, Television,

Do the Kissing Couple represent an end to public privacy?Scott Jones and Alex Thomas, the kissing couple.

“The Kissing Couple” is what the media has dubbed them: After Scott Jones and Alex Thomas were caught by photographer Rich Lam passionately smooching on the ground in the middle of the Stanley Cup riots in Vancouver, it took only a day before the Internet figured out their names. By Monday, the couple of six months were on “Today” talking about the circumstances around the kiss.

We can thank the Internet for the quick turnaround, with its billions of users who more and more frequently are out to expose your identity, not make you more anonymous. But is the Kissing Couple an example of the Internet’s desire to keep everyone in line via some Orwellian nightmare where we’re all spying on each other and constantly outing private moments, messages and Twitpics? Brian Stelter of the New York Times seems to think so:

This growing “publicness,” as it is sometimes called, comes with significant consequences for commerce, for political speech and for ordinary people’s right to privacy. There are efforts by governments and corporations to set up online identity systems. Technology will play an even greater role in the identification of once-anonymous individuals: Facebook, for instance, is already using facial recognition technology in ways that are alarming to European regulators.

Using other recent examples of viral photos and video “outings,” it’s easy to lump Jones and Thomas in with the woman who screamed at a conductor on the subway last week, or Anthony Weiner. But that’s forgetting a major contextual component: the Kissing Couple is a force of positive identification. Sure, the technology might be the same, but the reasons for people wanting to hear about these two are completely different from trying to track down the girls Weiner showed his wiener to. The Kissing Couple is far more reminiscent, in my opinion, of Patrick Moberg’s “NY Girl of My Dreams” project, for which he drew a picture of a cute girl on the subway and enlisted the entire Internet to track her down. He did, and the duo got their own “Good Morning America” appearance.

If the idea is that soon we are going to be too afraid to go to any extremes in public because of the fear that it will wind up on the Internet, is that such a bad thing? Maybe the idea of the anonymous regulators of the Web deprivatizing your freakouts will compel you not to blow up at train conductors or start screaming at the person ahead of you in line at Wendy’s. The case of the Kissing Couple is a great reminder that both sweet and sour things have equal potential to go viral; in that sense Big Brother may be watching, but he’s not judging.

Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 16 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
162 points163 points | 93 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
155 points156 points | 101 comments
vote
Ted Cruz against the world - How the Junior Senator is igniting the GOP civil war
80 points81 points | 21 comments
vote
Wikipedia’s anti-Pagan crusade
14 points15 points | 13 comments
vote
Developers evict historic women’s shelter to build luxury hotel - The 104-yr-old Anna Louise Inn has ended its 2-year legal battle with a Fortune 500 company & will now move. Many view the victory of the insurance company over a community touchstone as a major blow to the city.
13 points14 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations