Continue Reading Below Advertisement

I can tell you firsthand that I've seen just as big a change in my lifetime. I grew up way back in the day when your teenage poetry, gossip, and horrible thoughts went in a locked diary that you kept hidden under your mattress. These days, it goes on Tumblr or YouTube for 3 billion Internet users to view if they so desire. Growing up, I was trained to be self-conscious on camera; today, my computer, phone, and television all have cameras that watch me back while I use them. We're all "in public," all the time, and that's just the way it is.

And you know how they're pushing to put body cameras on police, to make sure they're not shooting dudes just for the hell of it? Don't be surprised when they put body cameras on servers at restaurants, to make sure they're being polite to customers, and soon after that, body cameras on everyone. In that book that I keep linking to, I speculate that these will become standard, everyday gear, not because some oppressive government is making us but because we want to. Just, stream it all -- stream everything. Whatever need for privacy we once had, we've decided the need for the approval of an audience is greater.

YouTube

"I'm leaving you. It's not you or me; my viewers just think you're boring."

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

So, these days when somebody gets fired because they were secretly recorded saying something awful in the privacy of their own home (as Hulk Hogan was), we don't worry about the "secret recording" aspect at all. "Hey, if they didn't want their employer hearing them say it, then they shouldn't have said it! Even in private, at home!" But are you sure you want that to be the rule, that everything you do is for public consumption? If you're reading this as a defense of telling racist jokes, let me ask you: