So prevalent is this change in communication that we're failing to see it right before our eyes. Spaces once thought private have become public; technology has altered the ways we interact with each other, in particular, in the bathroom.
In my dissertation, I intend to explore this notion, what I call "bathroom convergence" using the "Jeff Goldblum Is Watching You Poop" phenomenon, which spread throughout the Johnson MacFarlane residence hall in early April 2008, as a framework. A brief synopsis of the phenomenon is detailed below.
On April 1st, 2008, black and white copies of a photo of Jeff Goldblum, captioned with the text "Jeff Goldblum is watching you poop" in bold, upper-case letters, were taped onto the door of every bathroom stall in the Johnson-MacFarlane residence hall.
By the end of the first week, modifications were being made to the original. Some halls, including MacFarlane 1-1, went as far as to take the images down entirely.
In the days following, residents grew restless with the constraints imposed by Jeff Goldblum, and began their own campaign known as "Bryce Anderson is watching you poop." Here, residents employed new, cutting edge technology: downloading a photo from Mr. Anderson's Facebook page, modifying the photo with Microsoft Paint, and printing the photo using what is commonly referred to as a "Laser Printer." These were taped next to the remaining Goldblum posters.
Before I was able to document this phase, others began utilizing their own cutting edge technology, known as "Sharpie" permanent markers, and began to modify these new posters.
Through the metamorphosis of the "Jeff Goldblum is watching you poop" phenomenon, I will analyze in greater detail this "bathroom convergence" process, and its greater implications for bathroom culture.
2 comments:
It's interesting how you mentioned Microsoft Paint, many people I know who are not proficient in Photoshop both online and IRL (in real life) use Paint as a quasi replacement. And I'm sure people have been using the "Sharpie technology" for ages in fan communities to do "image manipulation". But it's also kind of scary that with the photo manipulation technology we have today, and the broad social networking sites like myspace or facebook, someone could make anyone look like they are doing anything with anyone, just by editing a picture...it could range from being as simple as shopping yourself to look like you are shaking the hands with the president, to someone using an image macro to blackmail you.
The more low tech the better. Jeff Goldblum is the perfect choice as a bathroom creeper, so props to whoever began this project.
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