We’re All Celebrities Now

The NYT has a good cautionary tale about modern celebrity today, focused on the life of some pretty big U.S. college football players. The story looks at the challenges these players face in an era where every cell phone has a camera and every photo rapidly makes its way online. The key graf for me:

“The latest stuff with the cellphones and digital devices has erased the boundaries between public and private,” Michael Oriard, an Oregon State professor who has written three books about the culture of college football, said in a telephone interview. “It’s an enormous jump, as it’s not just ESPN or Fox cameras, but it’s everyone with a cellphone.”

That line – erasing the line between public and private – is the important point. It applies equally to the disappearance of the bounds between work persona and home persona as well – the idea that anyone can maintain a rigid line between the way they are perceived in a work environment and in other forms of social media in their off hours is no longer real. We can all moan about that, but the die is cast, and the sooner people realize that, the better.