December 6, 2004
The new (citizen) paparazzi
With the public now using their cameraphones to snap celebrities and sell the pictures to the media, privacy has become even rarer. James Herring reports in a witty article on this new trend in The Guardian.
"Armed with cameraphones, any ordinary Joe can become a paparazzo.
Exponents of this popular new pastime, otherwise known as the "snapperazi", are sneeringly referred to as Snappies (Slightly Nutty Amateur Paparazzi Imitators), or dismissed as Nokia Nazis. Snapperazi love celebrities, and they love snapping pictures of them.
Best of all, from the media's point of view, the snapperazi know what kind of shots can be turned into hard cash. For years they've pored over grainy shots in the red-tops of the famous doing what they oughtn't with people they shouldn't. Now the snapperazi can take the same shots themselves.
The media have been quick to exploit this new resource. It's now commonplace for showbiz magazines to offer the public cash incentives to submit photographs of celebrities. This week's Heat magazine proclaims: "You've been snapped! Armed with their cameraphones, here's who Heat readers have been spying on this week."
There's cash to be made. A holiday-maker covered his vacation costs by phone-snapping a former England cricketer playing away from home in the Caribbean earlier this year. The shots were emailed direct from his handset to a Sunday newspaper's newsdesk, and (in time-honoured tabloid alliterese) the immoral miscreant's extramarital malarkey was all over the media in a matter of minutes.
Once, the public were slack-jawed observers of a celebrity circus packaged and presented by media professionals. Now - equipped with advanced mobile technology - the public can provide active and instantaneous input into the media processes that power the celebrity machine. In the 3G age, we can all participate in the making and breaking of celebrities. The future's bright. As long as you're not a celebrity."
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