'THE THREAT OF SURVEILLANCE COINCIDES WITH THE OPPORTUNITY OF SELF-BRANDING'

That's the nightmare of the web.

This is an amazing article about the celebrity mind-trap, how social media turns you into an observed person etc

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/hi-haters/

Some random segments:

"Every time you tag anything or respond to anything or link to anything, you’re informing on your friends.”

"Britney Spears' meltdown somehow dignifies our relative obscurity. Unlike Britney, of course, we don’t need constant attention; we don’t depend on the media to reflect back to us the meaning of what we do. With our concern for her mental health as an alibi, we can enjoy the spectacle of her losing her mind from too much social recognition — recognition being in somewhat short supply for the rest of us."

"The ideological enthusiasm for “participation” disguises the emptying out of privacy, and the inescapable scrutiny and social documentation ushers in “self-surveillance” — a grimmer way of describing online self-fashioning or identity construction."