The Nude Picture Scandal

How dumb can you be?

Excoriate Perez Hilton, come down on 4chan, but what I want to know is why these celebrities have nude photos on their phones to begin with?

Maybe I grew up in the dark ages, when you had to go to the porn shop to buy European magazines to see naked ladies, when it was a breakthrough when "Penthouse" printed pictures of women below the waist. But despite being aged, a veritable antique, I'm fully aware that if you don't want anybody to know anything, don't put it on the Internet!

No, let me restate that. If you're going to do anything illicit, do it alone, in the bathroom, in the dark.

Is it any wonder the public is interested in nude photos of celebrities? Isn't that what they're selling? There aren't that many unattractive actors and actresses in America. No, you won the gene derby, you worked on your craft and you made it. Congratulations! But do you have to be so dumb?

I mean exactly why do you need to take nude photos of yourself to begin with? When did that become the highest form of art? Ain't that America, where sex is taboo, but you flaunt your naked body nonetheless. I mean which way do we want it, European style, with naked boobies on the beach, or buttoned-up puritanical?

Oh, of course I feel sorry for Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton and the rest of the cadre whose names I don't recognize. But it really makes me wonder if they live in the real world. Are they so busy flying private and staying at the Four Seasons that they don't know what's going on?

There's a camera in every store..

There's a camera in the taxi.

There's a black box in your car.

And I believe we should definitely be debating privacy. But when I can go online and see a list of everywhere I've ever lived, the residence of my ex-wife, even the assets owned by my long deceased dad, I don't enter anything in a field that I don't want everybody to know.

Kind of like addresses... Want to buy something illicit on the Internet? Don't ship it to your home. That data is there...FOREVER! Kind of like Jennifer Lawrence's nude pics.

We've had leaked sex tapes, we've been living in this Internet era for nearly two decades, and suddenly we've got actresses stunned that their data isn't safe?

You never got your phone stolen? You've never lent it to another to take a picture? If you're famous, no one's ever snapped a photo of you without asking first? Hell, this has happened to me, and my fame can fit in a thimble compared to that of Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton.

That's the society we live in.

As for iCloud... Read this story:

"The Police Tool That Pervs Use to Steal Nude Pics From Apple's iCloud": http://www.wired.com/2014/09/eppb-icloud/

Furthermore, Google keeps your search history. So when you're at home, surfing porn, know that you are not alone, big brother is watching.

So what are we gonna do about this?

SELF-POLICE!

This was a crisis on Facebook a few years back. Drunken pics of college students went on their permanent record and prevented them from getting jobs. Did we beat up the corporations for using this data? Hell, we couldn't even get Facebook to give an adequate response. No, we educated ourselves and stopped posting that information. A big activity became scrubbing photos from Facebook the night after a party. Everybody woke up.

Why can't the actresses involved in this scandal wake up?

The last time I checked I had a body. Not that I'm proud of it. But I'm not taking naked photos of it and sending it to my girlfriend, because then they'd exist. On my phone, in the cloud, on my computer. If someone wanted to blackmail or humiliate me...

And I'm not demanding my girlfriend send me these photos either. I can get enough of her live.

Come on, Snapchat is all the rage because it evaporates, however imperfectly, and famous people get a pass for taking permanent photos and being astounded they leaked? THAT'S HOW THE INTERNET WORKS!

Perez Hilton has proven he's got no morals. He's a product of the Internet era, where personal fame is everything. Your brand trumps your talent and if you cross the line you apologize.

But if we stopped clicking on the links, he'd go out of business.

But we can't help ourselves. Because we're animals, human beings, with curiosity and desire. We love gossip because it's about us, people. We're evaluating others' fashion choices and word choices and love choices all the time, frequently modeling ourselves after them.

Furthermore, the Internet is filled with nobodies posting their own naked photos in an effort to get famous. Just Google your favorite predilection, photos and videos will come right up.

But no, the famous are inviolate.

Anthony Weiner resigns from Congress because he doesn't understand Internet privacy and makes poor choices but Hollywood is immune?

Hogwash.


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