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Erika Yoshida

“Big Brother is watching you” – this is the slogan of the Party in 1984. It threatens all readers by giving them a feeling of being watched. However, there is a TV program called “Big Brother” in the United States right now, inspired by Orwell’s book, and becoming very popular now not only in the United States but also in Europe. There must be some reason for such a hit. Maybe we can see the reason in humans’ natural desire to watch others’ lives.

“Big Brother” was started in Holland. Because it became so popular there, TV companies in other countries such as Germany, Denmark, and the United States, decided to produce exactly the same program in their countries. The rules are simple. Ten strangers live in a small “Big Brother house” for three months. There is no privacy, as there are 28 cameras and 60 microphones everywhere, even in the bathroom. The TV can’t broadcast everything, but the Internet can. Its official website, “bigbrother2000.com” has four live cameras, and you can watch people’s lives for twenty-four hours, whenever you want. Every other week, audiences vote by a phone to determine who will leave the house, and the person who gets the worst vote should leave the house. Actually people can leave the house whenever they want, but once they leave, there would be no chance to win the prize money of $500,000. All participants have a chance to win the prize, but they are watched by everybody in the world. Their movements and sounds are watched not by a dictator and the thought police, but by people in front of TVs and computers.

In 1984, people in Oceania are watched through the telescreen. In 2000, people in Big Brother’s House are watched though the Internet. This shows us the scary side of the Internet. Like a hacker, you can get other people’s private information, even though you don’t know much about the Internet. What you have to do is just connect the Internet and type out “bigbrother2000.com.” It’s easy enough for a little child. Fortunately, there are no telescreen in the year 2000. Unfortunately, the computer, the modern marvel, makes it possible for us to encroach upon people’s privacy though the Internet.

This would probably have astounded Orwell, who never dreamed that intrusiveness could be so democratized. How could he imagine that people would be able to watch a person’s privacy though the TV and the Internet so easily, or that the viewers would feel like spectators at a kind of game show. Yes, it reminds us of the movie, “The Truman Show,” a story about a man who spends his very ordinary life on a small island working as a postman. He has a wife, many friends there. He has never been outside of the island because he so loves the world around him. However, the truth is that his life is broadcast as a popular TV show, and his friends, his co-workers, even his wife and his mother are actors. His whole life is just a fake made by a TV company, which, finally, he notices. And he is repulsed. The difference is that the “actors” on BigBrother 2000.com seem to like it all. We are the one who feel repulsed. Or, perhaps, titillated.

From examples of the “Big Brother” and the “The Truman Show,” it is clear that people love to watch other people’s lives. It is a natural desire and hasn’t changed for 51 years, from 1949, when 1984 was published, till now. What has changed in 51 years is the view of privacy. Now, some people don’t care much about being watched, if they can earn money from that. These days, there is a term, “Generation D,” meaning the new digital generation. Many people, especially old people, would feel sleazy about BigBrother.com, but Generation D seems not to be fazed at all. The Internet has changed not only people’s lives, but also their views about privacy.

Privacy is now becoming a product that can be purchased. Then, the 21^st Century might be more scary than the world under Big Brother’s dictatorship.