We Live In Public: Can We Blame Josh?
Growing up with the internet, I have thought that I had a pretty solid understanding of who created the internet. After watching the documentary, “ We Live in Public” by Jason Matthew, I realize that was not the case. The film allowed me to learn more about the aspect of the web and the impact it has on our society through Josh Harris. Before watching this film, I did not know who Josh Harris was or his influence on the web. I find this fascinating because the internet is such a popular thing today yet we do not know the people who made this possible.
Many might feel the same way as I did when watching the documentary. The documentary lets the audience get inside Josh Harris’s head on his vision of the future. Although we live in a time where technology advances as each day past, watching this film, we get to see the process of the people involved to make technology the way it is today.
I find the film very personal on Josh Harris as he talks about his interaction with his mother and his life. Watching the process of where video barely works and lags to the advancement of streaming we have today. Focusing on the beginning of the film, something that I find interesting is how it says that one person can be no one body one day and become a millionaire the next. In the film, it explains how Josh got to where he was and his involvement with the Jupiter group, making him a celebrity. Although the main takeaway of this documentary is how far Josh went to live in public to give us a better understanding of how the public isn’t always good.
Social media that exist today part of it wouldn’t be possible without Josh. Josh lives in the prodigy time where he founded pseudo which was where audio and video capturing was just becoming a thing. Making youtube and steaming possible. In the film, I can get a vision of what Josh had for the future and the experiment he decides to do on himself where he lives in public shows it.
Going in deeper into the film, Josh touches on how we will all be paying for living in the public. This is where the title, “We Live in Public” comes into play. “Video we capture of you, that is what we own”. A takeaway I get from this part is to think before you post something online because not everything belongs online. I feel like the privacy issue is something that we are still having an issue with today. Although it is common sense to not be so public with your life, some may process this information slower.
Personally, since I grew up with the internet, I learn that some things don’t belong online the hard way but this film shows why. The film did a good job allowing the audience to see the process of the experiment. Josh proves this by experimenting on himself where he was on film for 24 hours. Timoner who recorded Josh for 6 months said, “He climbs into the TV set and he becomes the rat in his own experiment at this point, and the results don’t turn out very well for him.” Josh also touches on the aspect of how we live in a time where we have to trade our privacy for connection with one another. In his experiment, he ended up getting a nervous breakdown from being film 24/7.
The negative effect of the internet shouldn’t be a new thing as it is affecting many today. The film gets us a better understanding of why we shouldn’t just post anything as it can impact our health negatively. Also just being film 24/7, is not good for “mental stability” as Josh said in the film. Just thinking about the idea of “eating, shitting, have sex in public” kinda blows my mind as I would not be comfortable doing either of those in public and I don’t blame Josh for being mentally unstable from that.
