Britney Spears is pregnant. Hurrah. Huzzah. And isn’t it a wonderful thing? With the advent of the World Wide Web, Britney Spears can, in one push of a button, announce that she is pregnant to millions of fans, cranks, obsessed, and even disinterested people. Britney can truly announce “to the world” that she is pregnant. But should she?
Let’s face it, if the web didn’t exist, would she have taken out a full page in the New York Times?
I doubt it.
And think about it – is this what our Internet founding fathers envisioned when they created the World Wide Web? World wide pregnancy announcements? Not, mind you, that there is anything wrong with that. It’s just an interesting indicator of how the Internet has blossomed, mushroomed, and mutated in the past several years.
And how used we have become to people relinquishing all thoughts of privacy, and baring their all in the public square of the Internet.
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Ten years ago celebrities, even if they thought their fans cared that they were pregnant, rarely made such blatant announcements.
Twenty years ago celebrities didn’t announce it at all.
Longer ago than that celebrities often hid the fact that they were pregnant.
The point is, the advent of the Internet has brought about a new level of sharing and shedding of privacy… even decorum if you will. You can find websites where people share pretty much every aspect of their personal lives – often more than you’d think they would – and sometimes even more than they should. Let’s face it, a lot of these people sure don’t look like Britney Spears.
How far would you go, dear readers? What would you share on the Internet? What have you shared on the Internet?
Curious minds want to know.
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The internet does indeed give people the most instant news about anything, in the blink of an eye. Strange, though, how so much of that news tends to just lead back to celebs like Britany.
The internet also let’s people like you (and me) make comments on anything they feel like. So, if you don’t like it, get off your high horse and do something productive with the internet.
Nothing new here other than the way the message is being delivered. Celebrities have been making announcements of their impending child birth for years. In any event the Press will do it for her so she should be given the opportunity to share the news herself. The internet has given us a new way to carry information be it good or bad. Personally I’d rather read something that is a wee bit uplifting, like news of a birth, than see most of the trash that gets written about people either in the tabloids or presented to us on TV.
As for your statement wondering if she’d have made the announcement through other forms of media I suspect so. Given Brittney Spear’s great wealth I believe she would have taken out a full page ad to alert the world of her pregnancy had the press not already beaten her to it.
If people wish to bare their souls to the public why not let them? It’s a choice they make. Of interest is the fact that for every person who bare their “stuff” on-line many, many more are sitting in front of their monitors waiting to drool over it.
It saves writing/telephoning all the relations!
Since I didn’t do it, why should I care?
You don’t wanna know :p