Do Not Read (DNR)

It didn’t work, did it? You’re reading this, even when I explicitly warned you not to. STOP. I mean it.

If you must continue to recklessly disobey signs (are you this heedless on the road, too?), I might as well explain: DNR is a tag I often see when grading student journals. I let them have their verbal privacy when they want, provided that they clearly label the entry with DNR (here’s hoping that I don’t miss an especially gripping journal about the Department of Natural Resources someday because of this). I’d like to think that this allows them a little more room for candor/venting, thereby solidifying the link between writing and catharsis, thereby developing their voices, thereby creating scores of writers who will someday dazzle the world with the raw beauty and poignancy of their prose. I like to think this, at least.

I obey the privacy wishes of my students (I do), but a warning like this in a public writing space is more likely to tantalize readers into sneaking a peek than to provide safe cover. Which is why I typed it, illustrating the paradoxical mindset of many writers: words committed to page are intensely private, but it’s secretly thrilling when others see them. Publishing text is verbal voyeurism. It’s risky, and the danger/thrill factor increases when your stuff is exposed to strangers. People could turn their nose up in disgust, which is devastating, or your goodies could become the hottest peepshow in town. Am I really making a stripping analogy here? This is a family show!

The scandal I feel for even hinting at nudity (and verbal nudity, at that), though, is in pretty stark contrast to the growing trend of bare-it-all facebook photos and tell-all blogs in our confessional culture. Next to them, I’m positively prudish. The blurred line between private/public in our collective consciousness started with reality shows—where we were privy to the gripping saga of “who ate all the peanut butter?” in MTV’s first Real World and later to subtitles that simply said “slurping” when Joe Millionaire hot tub-snogged his gold-digging lady friend—and ballooned into a fully interactive, public peep show that spawned delightful verbs like “sexting”. I think it’s the medium that’s changing the mindset: technology allows us a degree of separation from the situation, providing a much more convenient and justifiable showing—and viewing—of what otherwise once was private. Technology, too, is a paradox, making strangers intimate while isolating people who live in the same household.

But I feel as if this has all been said before… I’m bored with this. Time to go take pictures of my bikini-clad self in the mirror with my camera phone and see which guido Snooki hooked up with in the hot tub on Jersey Shore.

XOXO
Gossip Girl