loose one. And he turned his site into a all-video-porn site --
teasters for free, pay to get more. It definitely seemed like the
'staged' events were blurred with real ones, and that his life was
deteriorating into a mess, even though it wasn't quite as bad as it
seemed when he was first 'recording' the visits from child protective
services and 'documenting' himself sorting coke with his kids at home
alone...
At what point does the sense of community and closeness that
videoblogging creates turn into something real that lasts through a
betrayal or crisis? At first Nathan's situation seemed like a real
crisis where many people reached out to him to help. Then it seemed he
was completely lying, and many people were pissed / dropped his feed,
etc. Then after a while it seemed to come out that maybe it wasn't all
lies, that he really was loosing his kids and getting too involved with
drugs.
It makes me think about how I've seen more than one person vlogging who
seems mentally ill / unstable -- and yet, unlike an actual friend who
lives in the same city with me, I don't have any real connection or
investment or way to be there for them. Sometimes I watch, sometimes I
don't. Sometimes I comment and hope my handful of words might be
helpful. Mostly I just think, wow, that person is manic, or depressed,
or a bit off right now.
An online friendship / video exchange does not equal a face-to-face
friendship. Online connections can turn into face-to-face friendships,
as we've all seen over and over. But when the relationship says
strictly in the realm of the internet, can it really provide the same
kind of support??
So what happens when a vlogger who doesn't have face-to-face
connections with the people watching their vlog, uses that space to cry
out for help / confess a downward spiral into a mess / to reach out for
connections to other people ... it's kind of a weird situation. Video
is much more personal, yet it's just a form of electronic
communication. It's not really a friendship all on it's own -- is it.
Thinking of Nathan makes me wonder about all this. Many of us were all
part of that journey of his with him -- and yet we weren't with him,
and many of us "bailed" (with a kind of what-the-fuck?!? I'm out of
here) when we realized how much lying was going on. When a person is in
your family or is a real friend, we don't bail as quickly or detach as
easily. We stick around and give more.
jen
jenSimmons
http://www.jensimmons.com
On Apr 24, 2006, at 11:51 PM, Josh Wolf wrote:
> Nathan Peters' videoblog was faked to a point, but then actual legal
> trouble struck him. At some point, the lines between what was really
> going on and what was staged got very much blurred. Now his site is
> not online... I don't know what the resolution was.
>
> Josh
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