Is Everything Copy?
The ethics around crafting content from other people’s lives are murky at best. Where should creators draw the line?
Ephron in 1972.
Photo by Jack Manning/Getty Images/New York Times Co.
In the introduction to her semi-autobiographical novel Heartburn, Nora Ephron writes about one of the main lessons her mother taught her: “Everything is copy.” Ephron writes, “As a result, I knew the moment my marriage ended that someday it might make a book—if I could just stop crying.”
I was reminded of this precept while watching the Netflix comedy series about, among many other things, teenagers’ sex lives, Sex Education; specifically, the storyline where the main character’s mother, a sex therapist played by the delightful Gillian Anderson, uses her son’s sexual dysfunction as the basis for her book. It prompted the thought: is everything copy? Do writers and creators really have carte blanche to mine the lives of those around them for their work?
The 21st-century version of this adage would be “everything is content.” We see how it's been embraced across all major social media platforms. A decade ago, mining your personal life for cash was de rigueur thanks to sites aimed at women like xoJane and Jezebel. While the First Person Industrial Complex bubble subsequently burst, “everything is copy” lived on elsewhere. Oversharing wasn’t invented on Tumblr, but it became something of an art form on the platform. Many people learned how to joke about their trauma in precisely the right way in order to go viral, and subsequently replicated that success on Twitter, Instagram, and now TikTok.
People often joke that you shouldn’t date or marry a writer, because they will inevitably write about you once your relationship ends. (This is said about Taylor Swift more than any other person, as though having a Taylor Swift song written about you wouldn’t be an incredible honor.) But I would argue that using your own relationships for inspiration, the way writers like Nora Ephron and Taylor Swift have, is wildly different compared to using the lives of relative strangers for content. The latter also tends to be ethically murkier.
Videos on TikTok and YouTube featuring people in public who don’t know they’re being filmed are common, owing to the fact that in many jurisdictions, it’s legal. One woman, Maree, spoke to Australia’s ABC after a video of her being given flowers was viewed over 57 million times. “He interrupted my quiet time, filmed and uploaded a video without my consent, turning it into something it wasn't, and I feel like he is making quite a lot of money through it,” she said. “It's the patronizing assumption that women, especially older women, will be thrilled by some random stranger giving them flowers.”
The video she appeared in is the result of what people involved view as “radical empathy.” In reality, however, they’re just weaponizing pity. People will film themselves crying in restaurants at the sight of elderly people eating on their own and go on to film the elderly people as well, under the guise of “being an empath.” Many creators assume that because these restaurant patrons are older, there must be a tragic backstory behind their decision to eat food by themselves. Instead of actually being empathetic, they’re projecting their own fears of aging and loneliness onto a complete stranger. They construct narratives out of whole cloth in order to create content, and then benefit from the views and engagement they receive—while the subjects of their videos often aren’t even aware they’re being seen by millions of people across the world.
More recently, there has been a rising wave of backlash against “man on the street” vox pop interviews, particularly those popular on TikTok. Writing for Gawker, Jenny G. Zhang says, “Just walking through Washington Square Park, a college campus, or any other hotspot haunted by 22-year-olds with an iPhone and a lav mic could result in becoming the unwitting star of a video that gets two million views and a few thousand commenters insulting the way you talk, walk, dress, or try to duck out of view.”
As Zhang explains, even the act of declining to be interviewed can be turned into content by these creators. A popular video from TikTok user bertmightbereal features him dancing while imploring his audience, “Don’t accept a social media street interview unless you’re 110% okay with your responses being edited to fit an agenda.” A TikToker who conducts man-on-the-street interviews with students agreed, explaining that he follows strict rules to ensure people’s lives aren’t ruined by appearing in one of his videos. One of the ways he procures enthusiastic consent on the part of interviewees is that he invites them to come to him by holding up a sign that says, “Quick interview for a TikTok.” He also tells participants the questions before he starts filming, in order to give them time to prepare their responses, but also giving them the opportunity to decline to answer the question without their refusal also being turned into content.
As someone who has engaged in many kinds of content creation, I understand the feeling that grips you when you see, or hear, or read something that you think would make a fantastic story or video (although usually the most I will do is turn it into a tweet). It feels akin to photographing a complete stranger in public—perfectly legal, but ethically dubious. Are you recording a fat person just to laugh at them, like people did when they posted a video of Sean O’Brien dancing? Are you filming yourself performing an act of kindness because you value kindness or because you know it does numbers on TikTok? Are you sharing someone else’s words just so you can twist them to align with your own pre-existing views?
Human rights organizations largely oppose public surveillance on a mass scale; the ACLU believes that it has not been proven effective and is susceptible to abuse, arguing, “The growing presence of public cameras will bring subtle but profound changes to the character of our public spaces. When citizens are being watched by the authorities—or aware they might be watched at any time—they are more self-conscious and less free-wheeling.”
In an interview with Huck magazine, Emily, a 30-year-old from Australia, defended a viral video of hers in which she recorded a stranger unknowingly. “If you’re in a public space, you are exposed to being put on social media at any point in time,” she said. The ACLU need not worry about the chilling effect of security cameras on public life. If individuals are busy recording each other without their knowledge or consent, people will inevitably adjust their behavior so as to not run the risk of becoming the subject of a viral video—no government-mandated security cameras necessary.
Jan 12, 2023
·
5 min read
Is Everything Copy?
The ethics around crafting content from other people’s lives are murky at best. Where should creators draw the line?
Ephron in 1972.
Photo by Jack Manning/Getty Images/New York Times Co.
In the introduction to her semi-autobiographical novel Heartburn, Nora Ephron writes about one of the main lessons her mother taught her: “Everything is copy.” Ephron writes, “As a result, I knew the moment my marriage ended that someday it might make a book—if I could just stop crying.”
I was reminded of this precept while watching the Netflix comedy series about, among many other things, teenagers’ sex lives, Sex Education; specifically, the storyline where the main character’s mother, a sex therapist played by the delightful Gillian Anderson, uses her son’s sexual dysfunction as the basis for her book. It prompted the thought: is everything copy? Do writers and creators really have carte blanche to mine the lives of those around them for their work?
The 21st-century version of this adage would be “everything is content.” We see how it's been embraced across all major social media platforms. A decade ago, mining your personal life for cash was de rigueur thanks to sites aimed at women like xoJane and Jezebel. While the First Person Industrial Complex bubble subsequently burst, “everything is copy” lived on elsewhere. Oversharing wasn’t invented on Tumblr, but it became something of an art form on the platform. Many people learned how to joke about their trauma in precisely the right way in order to go viral, and subsequently replicated that success on Twitter, Instagram, and now TikTok.
People often joke that you shouldn’t date or marry a writer, because they will inevitably write about you once your relationship ends. (This is said about Taylor Swift more than any other person, as though having a Taylor Swift song written about you wouldn’t be an incredible honor.) But I would argue that using your own relationships for inspiration, the way writers like Nora Ephron and Taylor Swift have, is wildly different compared to using the lives of relative strangers for content. The latter also tends to be ethically murkier.
Videos on TikTok and YouTube featuring people in public who don’t know they’re being filmed are common, owing to the fact that in many jurisdictions, it’s legal. One woman, Maree, spoke to Australia’s ABC after a video of her being given flowers was viewed over 57 million times. “He interrupted my quiet time, filmed and uploaded a video without my consent, turning it into something it wasn't, and I feel like he is making quite a lot of money through it,” she said. “It's the patronizing assumption that women, especially older women, will be thrilled by some random stranger giving them flowers.”
The video she appeared in is the result of what people involved view as “radical empathy.” In reality, however, they’re just weaponizing pity. People will film themselves crying in restaurants at the sight of elderly people eating on their own and go on to film the elderly people as well, under the guise of “being an empath.” Many creators assume that because these restaurant patrons are older, there must be a tragic backstory behind their decision to eat food by themselves. Instead of actually being empathetic, they’re projecting their own fears of aging and loneliness onto a complete stranger. They construct narratives out of whole cloth in order to create content, and then benefit from the views and engagement they receive—while the subjects of their videos often aren’t even aware they’re being seen by millions of people across the world.
More recently, there has been a rising wave of backlash against “man on the street” vox pop interviews, particularly those popular on TikTok. Writing for Gawker, Jenny G. Zhang says, “Just walking through Washington Square Park, a college campus, or any other hotspot haunted by 22-year-olds with an iPhone and a lav mic could result in becoming the unwitting star of a video that gets two million views and a few thousand commenters insulting the way you talk, walk, dress, or try to duck out of view.”
As Zhang explains, even the act of declining to be interviewed can be turned into content by these creators. A popular video from TikTok user bertmightbereal features him dancing while imploring his audience, “Don’t accept a social media street interview unless you’re 110% okay with your responses being edited to fit an agenda.” A TikToker who conducts man-on-the-street interviews with students agreed, explaining that he follows strict rules to ensure people’s lives aren’t ruined by appearing in one of his videos. One of the ways he procures enthusiastic consent on the part of interviewees is that he invites them to come to him by holding up a sign that says, “Quick interview for a TikTok.” He also tells participants the questions before he starts filming, in order to give them time to prepare their responses, but also giving them the opportunity to decline to answer the question without their refusal also being turned into content.
As someone who has engaged in many kinds of content creation, I understand the feeling that grips you when you see, or hear, or read something that you think would make a fantastic story or video (although usually the most I will do is turn it into a tweet). It feels akin to photographing a complete stranger in public—perfectly legal, but ethically dubious. Are you recording a fat person just to laugh at them, like people did when they posted a video of Sean O’Brien dancing? Are you filming yourself performing an act of kindness because you value kindness or because you know it does numbers on TikTok? Are you sharing someone else’s words just so you can twist them to align with your own pre-existing views?
Human rights organizations largely oppose public surveillance on a mass scale; the ACLU believes that it has not been proven effective and is susceptible to abuse, arguing, “The growing presence of public cameras will bring subtle but profound changes to the character of our public spaces. When citizens are being watched by the authorities—or aware they might be watched at any time—they are more self-conscious and less free-wheeling.”
In an interview with Huck magazine, Emily, a 30-year-old from Australia, defended a viral video of hers in which she recorded a stranger unknowingly. “If you’re in a public space, you are exposed to being put on social media at any point in time,” she said. The ACLU need not worry about the chilling effect of security cameras on public life. If individuals are busy recording each other without their knowledge or consent, people will inevitably adjust their behavior so as to not run the risk of becoming the subject of a viral video—no government-mandated security cameras necessary.
Jan 12, 2023
·
5 min read
Is Everything Copy?
The ethics around crafting content from other people’s lives are murky at best. Where should creators draw the line?
Ephron in 1972.
Photo by Jack Manning/Getty Images/New York Times Co.
In the introduction to her semi-autobiographical novel Heartburn, Nora Ephron writes about one of the main lessons her mother taught her: “Everything is copy.” Ephron writes, “As a result, I knew the moment my marriage ended that someday it might make a book—if I could just stop crying.”
I was reminded of this precept while watching the Netflix comedy series about, among many other things, teenagers’ sex lives, Sex Education; specifically, the storyline where the main character’s mother, a sex therapist played by the delightful Gillian Anderson, uses her son’s sexual dysfunction as the basis for her book. It prompted the thought: is everything copy? Do writers and creators really have carte blanche to mine the lives of those around them for their work?
The 21st-century version of this adage would be “everything is content.” We see how it's been embraced across all major social media platforms. A decade ago, mining your personal life for cash was de rigueur thanks to sites aimed at women like xoJane and Jezebel. While the First Person Industrial Complex bubble subsequently burst, “everything is copy” lived on elsewhere. Oversharing wasn’t invented on Tumblr, but it became something of an art form on the platform. Many people learned how to joke about their trauma in precisely the right way in order to go viral, and subsequently replicated that success on Twitter, Instagram, and now TikTok.
People often joke that you shouldn’t date or marry a writer, because they will inevitably write about you once your relationship ends. (This is said about Taylor Swift more than any other person, as though having a Taylor Swift song written about you wouldn’t be an incredible honor.) But I would argue that using your own relationships for inspiration, the way writers like Nora Ephron and Taylor Swift have, is wildly different compared to using the lives of relative strangers for content. The latter also tends to be ethically murkier.
Videos on TikTok and YouTube featuring people in public who don’t know they’re being filmed are common, owing to the fact that in many jurisdictions, it’s legal. One woman, Maree, spoke to Australia’s ABC after a video of her being given flowers was viewed over 57 million times. “He interrupted my quiet time, filmed and uploaded a video without my consent, turning it into something it wasn't, and I feel like he is making quite a lot of money through it,” she said. “It's the patronizing assumption that women, especially older women, will be thrilled by some random stranger giving them flowers.”
The video she appeared in is the result of what people involved view as “radical empathy.” In reality, however, they’re just weaponizing pity. People will film themselves crying in restaurants at the sight of elderly people eating on their own and go on to film the elderly people as well, under the guise of “being an empath.” Many creators assume that because these restaurant patrons are older, there must be a tragic backstory behind their decision to eat food by themselves. Instead of actually being empathetic, they’re projecting their own fears of aging and loneliness onto a complete stranger. They construct narratives out of whole cloth in order to create content, and then benefit from the views and engagement they receive—while the subjects of their videos often aren’t even aware they’re being seen by millions of people across the world.
More recently, there has been a rising wave of backlash against “man on the street” vox pop interviews, particularly those popular on TikTok. Writing for Gawker, Jenny G. Zhang says, “Just walking through Washington Square Park, a college campus, or any other hotspot haunted by 22-year-olds with an iPhone and a lav mic could result in becoming the unwitting star of a video that gets two million views and a few thousand commenters insulting the way you talk, walk, dress, or try to duck out of view.”
As Zhang explains, even the act of declining to be interviewed can be turned into content by these creators. A popular video from TikTok user bertmightbereal features him dancing while imploring his audience, “Don’t accept a social media street interview unless you’re 110% okay with your responses being edited to fit an agenda.” A TikToker who conducts man-on-the-street interviews with students agreed, explaining that he follows strict rules to ensure people’s lives aren’t ruined by appearing in one of his videos. One of the ways he procures enthusiastic consent on the part of interviewees is that he invites them to come to him by holding up a sign that says, “Quick interview for a TikTok.” He also tells participants the questions before he starts filming, in order to give them time to prepare their responses, but also giving them the opportunity to decline to answer the question without their refusal also being turned into content.
As someone who has engaged in many kinds of content creation, I understand the feeling that grips you when you see, or hear, or read something that you think would make a fantastic story or video (although usually the most I will do is turn it into a tweet). It feels akin to photographing a complete stranger in public—perfectly legal, but ethically dubious. Are you recording a fat person just to laugh at them, like people did when they posted a video of Sean O’Brien dancing? Are you filming yourself performing an act of kindness because you value kindness or because you know it does numbers on TikTok? Are you sharing someone else’s words just so you can twist them to align with your own pre-existing views?
Human rights organizations largely oppose public surveillance on a mass scale; the ACLU believes that it has not been proven effective and is susceptible to abuse, arguing, “The growing presence of public cameras will bring subtle but profound changes to the character of our public spaces. When citizens are being watched by the authorities—or aware they might be watched at any time—they are more self-conscious and less free-wheeling.”
In an interview with Huck magazine, Emily, a 30-year-old from Australia, defended a viral video of hers in which she recorded a stranger unknowingly. “If you’re in a public space, you are exposed to being put on social media at any point in time,” she said. The ACLU need not worry about the chilling effect of security cameras on public life. If individuals are busy recording each other without their knowledge or consent, people will inevitably adjust their behavior so as to not run the risk of becoming the subject of a viral video—no government-mandated security cameras necessary.
Jan 12, 2023
·
5 min read
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Lens features creator stories that inspire, inform, and entertain.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter so you never miss a story.
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Lens features creator stories that inspire, inform, and entertain.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter so you never miss a story.
