Peep This

Culture critic Hal Niedzviecki confuses us, but in a good way. In 2006, he wrote a book about the homogenization of indie youth culture (Hello, I’m Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity), then wrote a primer to help make more indie homogenized youth culture (The Big Book of DIY Pop Culture: A How-To Guide for Young Artists). But that’s okay! We’d like to see more kids conform to Sonic Youth et al. than American Idol et al. any day (and so what if Chris Ware gets more famous? He should). For his latest effort, Niedzviecki tackles the Internet, primarily the part that looks and wants to be looked at. He even coined a term: Peep culture. Not only does he research all you Twittering, Facebonking zombies, feeding on minutiae and gossip, he also writes about Tila Tequila and the Star Wars kid. And Julia Allison. Well, he had to. But he also went gonzo with The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors, joining up with myriad social networks, starting a blog, spying on his neighbors, hanging out with amateur Net porn old people. And upon the book’s release he’s going even farther, putting his entire life on the Web (even home surveillance footage) and submitting to being filmed for the doc Peep Me, the first day of which involved him in the shower. Today, he reads with Eric Zassenhaus and Gravity Goldberg from Instant City magazine. Go ahead, blog it. Shit, live-blog it.
Mon., June 8, 7:30 p.m., 2009