20 August

The dirty unspoken truth of social media is one we don’t want to admit. Like Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, where the character spends his days spying on other peoples’ lives through the windows of his apartment. That’s what social media’s attraction is. Sanctioned voyeurism. If you hid outside somebody’s house and peered through the windows, you’d be arrested. But you don’t need to, their lives are now livestreamed. By them. We queue up to be spied on. We love exhibiting ourselves, to others. We put on a show. Hitchcock’s movie made today would have the neighbours decorating their apartments with the latest fashions, while adjusting their make up and poses, smiling for the camera.