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Notes
Greg Young is a Senior Lecturer in Media Communications in the School of Art, Media and Design at the University of Gloucestershire, UK. Born in Melbourne, Australia, he has an MA [Media and Communications] and PhD [Politics] from the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University. His research interests are popular music; masculinities in media cultures; media history; Australian history, national mythologies and mediated identities; celebrity cultures, new media theory and everyday life. Correspondence to: [email protected].
Under the subheading ‘Me Cams: Watch me as I am happening’ Kitzmann illustrates how contrary to the abundant literature on MOOS and MUDs, for example (Taylor, Citation1999; Turkle, Citation1995), cyberspace is very much dominated by people in search of the ‘real’ rather than the virtual person and there is no shortage of people prepared to provide a window into their ‘reality’, be it at work or home via Webcams—the most often sited example being, of course, JenniCam. For Kitzmann this search for the ‘real’ is very much centred on Webcams and the ‘assertion and belief that what you see is really what there is’ (Kitzmann, 1999, p. 6). The popularity of sites such as JenniCam and the like are centred on a notion that ‘real life and real time are synonymous with one another and, as well, associated with the representation of the self as a stable, fixed and identifiable entity’ (Kitzmann, 1999, p. 7). Kitzmann builds upon McQuire's identification that ‘domestic web cams function as “space–time machines”, each of which is capable of instantiating a potentially infinite chain of eyewitnesses’ (McQuire, 1998, in Kitzmann, 1999, p. 7). Underpinning this, according to Kitzmann, is a desire for documenting the self within a technology that enables us to do so with a sense of immediacy and in a sense of accessibility that had hitherto not been the case.
According to O'Sullivan, the study of stars as cultural phenomena has sought to encompass three related strands:
Stars as agents and commodities, used to promote films and other merchandise and to mobilize audiences for cinematic and other forms of profitability. | |||||
Stars, both in the characters and performances they play, and in their reported ‘disclosed’, ‘private’ lives, act to condense and represent certain ideals of behaviour, action, style, sentiment, etc. In this context they operate as powerful signs, images or types within cultural codes and process. | |||||
The star audience relationship. Stars are popular because they are regarded with some form of active esteem and invested with cultural value. They resonate within particular lifestyles and subcultures and are subject to differential forms of identification dependant upon gender or sexuality for example. (O'Sullivan, in O'Sullivan et al., Citation1994, p. 297) | |||||
Thumbnails are miniature displays of an image or page (http://www.computeruser.com ) that enable the user to browse through multiple images which, in the case of Gaydar, are each linked to their respective member profiles. Clicking on a thumbnail opens a full screen viewing of the member's profile, and a profile is itself akin to a homepage in layout with the difference here being that the page is hosted within the portal of www.gaydar.co.uk. Thus should you know the name of a Gaydar profile you need only prefix it with the above Web address plus a forward slash, press enter and if the profile is an active one, that is it is a currently listed Gaydar profile, it will appear.
Indeed, this in itself is worth examining at a later date in greater detail. Again, anecdotally, as users have to pay their subscription in US or sterling prices there appears to be a significant drop off in paid‐up membership in this global forum in countries where their native currency is weaker in relation to both sterling and US dollars for an extended period. In Australia, where the dollar has been consistently undervalued by around 30 per cent from 2000 onwards, this appears to be the case, there java chat is the preferred forum over the assistant because it is free and messaging is unlimited. The digital divide appears to be alive and well on Gaydar.
The late Herb Ritz, photographer for Calvin Klein, the Rolling Stones, Hollywood stars such as Madonna, Richard Gere, and former Mr Universe Bob Paris and his former partner, is variously referred to as Herb Ritts and Herb Ritz in publications. See, for example: http://gallery.passion4art.com/members/dougie/queer.html and http://www.rollingstone. com/news/newsarticle.asp?nid=17260
It is too early to say whether the somewhat more inclusive image of the older and younger man that has recently replaced the original Herb Ritz‐inspired male is evidence of a shift in the aesthetic outlined above. This is an interesting development; however, its recentness takes it out of the main discussion contained in this paper which for the most part considers the original aesthetics of Gaydar in relation to mycasting.
It is not within the scope or purpose of this paper to provide this approach to a content analysis of the images of high‐hit Gaydar profiles and cross‐listed men in the Bigmuscle top 20 over time, for example. Suffice it to say there would be compelling reasons for undertaking such a study, particularly in relation to possibly identifying any measurable aesthetic intersections with celebrity culture and queer cultures across time that would inform the contemporary online celebrity aesthetic that appears to be emerging in Gaydar as opposed to more heterosexually oriented portals, for example.
This is also evident on adult‐oriented Webcam sites such as ‘The best webcams in the world’ top 100 located at http://www.crea‐site.com/webcam/ and similarly so for http://rankmywebcam.studentcenter.org/
That both have often been referred to as ‘“gay” icons’ might be worth considering also within the context of a deeper analysis of the aesthetics that may or may not be informing the emerging celebrity forms outlined above on Gaydar and Bigmuscle.
Salecl similarly believes that ‘contemporary capitalism “needs” the subject … who consistently questions his or her identity, changes sexual roles and is above all primarily concerned with making his or her life into “a work of art” ’ (Salecl, 1994, in Berglez, 2001, p. 17).
The swift rise and fall of IcuffYou is interesting in that it was due to his celebrity at the local level. IcuffYou, a name he linked to his physical self and promoted as such to that community, was a means of self‐promotion to engage in sexual conduct involving the use of drugs with other like‐minded men. It then became notorious when a journalist who, posing as a potential sexual partner online, met Richards offline and effectively intercepted and entrapped his online celebrity, published an article that revealed Richard's preference for taking drugs during sex in the mainstream newspaper he was employed by, and undermined the fixed identity that was a requirement of his position in the police hierarchy.
The preparedness for exhibitionism through the posting and exchanging of private JPEGs on Gaydar, for example, and through streaming Webcam portals such as ICUII is worth considering in relation to the finding by Cronin & Davenport (2001) that the assumptions of anonymity that such users may have had online may in fact have given even the most visibly out sexual identities online a false sense of security in that context. Another interesting point they raise is that ‘70% of all web pornography sites are being developed by individuals with no prior experience in the industry’ (Cronin & Davenport, 2001, p. 39). This may imply that there is perhaps a convergence of sorts between sexual celebrity and ordinariness, one where for some Internet users there is a perceived need to publicly project/mediate one's sexual prowess into their overall public image or representation of themselves.