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Asia Buzz: Orwellian Delights
Big Brother is watching you!
By ERIC ELLIS
August
31, 2000
Web posted at 2:00 p.m. Hong Kong time, 2:00 a.m. EDT
How interesting is someone brushing their teeth? Eating breakfast?
Sleeping? Some 1.5 million Internet users seem to think such activities
are fascinating. That's the number of people who've logged into the
latest Web phenom -- Big
Brother.
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This is the site for the crowd who've been reading about the extraordinary response to that Survivor program that U.S. network CBS filmed on Pulau Tiga, the tiny Malaysian island where implanted middle Americans tried to survive each other's personalities, and nature, to win $1 million. I say "reading" about it because here in Asia, where it all happened, that's pretty much all we did. Survivor was largely an American phenomenon, and from what I understand of the show and its "stars," thank goodness..
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But if you're feeling ripped off at not getting your slice of the Survivor pie, then Big Brother might be for you. This is the British-based site where Web users can vote any one, or all, of the 10 people involved in the experiment, out of it. The program extends that voyeuristic webcam phenomenon of a few years back where a nerd fends for six months entirely by the Net.
Big Brother started with 10 people living together in a specially-built apartment wired with 24 cameras. Ten people under each other's feet in a small house would be trying in any case, but with cameras monitoring their every move, tempers began to fray. The contestants have now been whittled down to 5. The Net user can hear every word, and watch every activity, even the most private. A British brewery has even offered $73,000 to the first two contestants who have sex online -- and if they are of the same sex then probably all the better, for ratings, I guess.
Big Brother is The Truman Show, and then some. With Truman, viewers were enthralled as the Jim Carrey character was manipulated by technology, advertising and Ed Harris' God-like executive producer. But that was all they could do. With Big Brother, viewers can monitor events and even influence them directly with online polls.
The show is backed by Channel Four, one of Britain's most popular broadcasters. And so it's true convergence, where the Web meets TV and radio in real life, real-time soap opera. No waiting for the U.S. West Coast TV viewers to kick into prime time before we find out who's been kicked out, or having sex for that matter. In fact, we're more likely here in Asia, than the Brits, to see any flickering romance before they do in Europe.
If you were being watched by Big Brother -- all of us -- wouldn't you be doing it at night, with the lights off?
Eric Ellis is the Southeast Asia and Technology Editor of the regional
finance portal AsiaWise.com
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