Jennifer Lawrence at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards
If you were anywhere near the Internet this past weekend, you read or heard about the Jennifer Lawrence nude photo scandal. Actually, the private photo collections of numerous models, actresses and celebrities, including not just Jennifer Lawrence but also Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and others were hacked, put up online, sent around virally and viewed millilons of times. Putting aside the obvious criminal and moral violations of the photo leak, one has to marvel at the speed and magnitude at which people were able to take in the content. So the question becomes, how can we send around our political messages with this kind of speed and impact?
Admittedly, politics isn’t sex, and “nude celebrity photos” or some variation thereof is among the most viewed and searched items on the Internet. Obviously, a political sex scandal involving photos would be quite popular as well. Recall the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky matter, which galvanized the cable television news networks and the public like few things politically-related. Or imagine, for example, if nude photos of Sarah Palin from her reportedly wild earlier days were leaked online. But barring such a political sex scandal, how do we get viewers and readers passionately interested in important political content?
The main lesson from the Jennifer Lawrence scandal seems to be: do it yourself. In the case of this celebrity nude photo leak, apparently someone hacked into Apple‘s iCloud, then posted the photos on various sites such as 4chan, Reddit, Twitter and Tumblr (sorry, we are not linking to any of the involved photos in this post). Again, we’re condemning, not condoning, this criminal activity, but note how the activity was done outside of the traditional mainstream corporate media. Why can’t we also achieve success by going around the MSM, albeit in a legal and moral way, with our political content?
Clearly, many of the “new media” companies involved in the Jennifer Lawrence photo leak are big corporations, but when it comes to political coverage, the TV networks are chasing the same small shiny objects. Consider some of the news stories you’ve seen from the mainstream media this summer and during the past year: The Tan Suit. The “no angel” Michael Brown. The Chuck Todd. What have these MSM watchers been lacking?
How about the Ferguson Police disrespect of Michael Brown’s body or Brown’s memory? What about Senator John McCain‘s 2013 selfie with his ISIS terrorist friends? Or the Koch Brothers‘ attempted takeover of Florida State University? These stories, and many others, appear on blogs such as the Daily Kos and Crooks and Liars, and readers make the effort to send them around on email and on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, often to great effect.
The point is, if we want to find out more about the news stories and issues that really affect our lives, rather than just admiring the small shiny objects that the mainstream corporate media toss our way, then we need to participate in covering or distributing such stories ourselves. And this is a case where “covering yourself” might not be such a bad idea.
Photo by Jenn Deering Davis, used under Creative Commons license. http://is.gd/psCNKN
