The week’s saving grace was New Media Studies on Friday. Mr Dempster is the most easygoing (i.e. human) teacher at Whitlam and he’s never taught Larrie, so it’s impossible for him to compare the two of us. I didn’t think it was a coincidence that it was the one class where I still ranked in the top ten.
New Media Studies was introduced to Whitlam’s curriculum last year as part of Mr Masch’s obsession with the internet. After his grandson introduced him to Facebook, he’d convinced the school board that Whitlam should hook into the social media Zeitgeist. Which was how the Whit’s Wit blog was born, and the Whitlam High Facebook group, our Flickr photo sharing group and (briefly, until Simon pointed out that the site was blocked by the school’s web filtering software) a Twitter stream.
From what we could tell, the idea behind offering the subject was to ensure Mr Masch had a steady supply of content for all these sites. As well as learning Flash animation, photo manipulation and html coding, each of us had to contribute regular posts to Whit’s Wit. The posts were meant to focus on topics that were of broad interest to the Whitlam community, but Brandy quickly vetoed anything controversial. Such as my piece about animal rights and dissection.
She used to make Simon delete anything that was “offensive” (by her standards), until Maz’s post about how Whitlam’s old-fashioned uniform rules were turning us into beige clones of a certain deputy principal. After that Simon had to build a workflow into the blog that ensured nothing could be published until Brandy approved it. (Which explained why Larrie usually featured prominently on the home page.) As further punishment, Brandy insisted there be an “ethics” component to New Media Studies, in case we were enjoying ourselves a bit too much.
There was a communal groan when we got to the computer lab and saw the chairs set up in the middle of the room and Mr Dempster struggling with the projector. Obviously, we weren’t going to get to use the computers today. The mood in the room improved a bit when the projector whirred to life and the Celebrity Meltdown home page filled the whiteboard. Everyone stopped chatting to see what was making news.
“Today we’re going to talk about the ethics of online media, privacy and gossip,” explained Mr Dempster. “It’s been said that the media is a hungry beast: it devours everything and is never satisfied. But is the media to blame or is it merely trying to satiate a ravenous audience? And do celebrities give up their right to privacy when they step into the spotlight?”
“It’s the paparazzi, isn’t it?” said Nicko. “They take photos of celebrities every time they change their clothes and then sell the pictures.”
“Is that why some celebrities –” Mr Dempster pointed to Celebrity Meltdown’s lead story, about the girlfriend of a footballer going on a shopping spree “– are never seen in the same outfit twice?”
“That’s because she’s got an enormous wardrobe,” said Tracy Green.
“Maybe,” said Mr Dempster. “Or maybe she knows how to feed the beast. After all, if no one’s looking, no one’s talking.”
“And how come the paparazzi always happen to be exactly where she is?” asked Maz, upholding her reputation for being the class cynic. “She probably sends them a schedule.”
“She can’t help it if people are fascinated by her,” protested Lily Ng, who blogged almost daily about said girlfriend-of-a-footballer’s outfits.
There was a heated debate about whether the media manipulates celebrities or celebrities manipulate the media. The argument was between those of us who followed Celebrity Meltdown religiously, and people like Simon, who thought that we should be interested in what actors and sports people do for a living, not what they get up to in their private lives.
“People can’t hold themselves up as a squeaky-clean role model when it suits them and then be surprised when the gossip columns show pictures of them falling down drunk,” I said. “If you put yourself on a pedestal, you have to expect people to want to see you fall off it.”
Mr Dempster nodded thoughtfully. “Nice analogy, Al.”
It was the biggest compliment I’d received from a teacher in months.
“I think you’d better stop posting photos of yourself mooning next to famous monuments.”
Prad looked at Maz like she’d suggested he should stop breathing. He swallowed the mouthful of sandwich he was chewing with a gulp. “I’m not throwing away three years of hard work setting the timer on my camera and distracting my parents to get those shots. I was almost arrested at the Eiffel Tower, you know.”
“We have to start thinking about the future,” said Maz. “I don’t want those photos surfacing when Vertigo Pony’s on its sellout tour of Europe and America in a few years’ time.”
“Even if you do delete them now, chances are they’ve already been downloaded by someone you’ve never even heard of,” said Simon.
Maz’s face fell. “Take. Down. The photos,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I’ll think about it,” said Prad. Which meant he wouldn’t.
Listening to them made me feel despondent about not having a plan of my own for the future. As it stood, I hadn’t got further than four weeks and six days, when I planned to be celebrating Larrie’s final exam in a major way. “What am I going to do while you’re off on this tour? You guys’ll be world famous and all I’ll be known for is being Larrie’s little sister.”
“You’ll probably be famous in your own right by then,” said Maz. “You’ve got loads of talents.”
I suspected Maz must’ve felt guilty about agreeing with Simon’s ridiculous “change yourself” comment the day before; she’d been suspiciously unsarcastic all day.
“Name one,” I challenged her. “I can’t sing or act, I’m no good at sports, I don’t understand even the most basic scientific principles, my drawing skills scare people …”
“What about your amazing sense of smell?” said Nicko. “No one else can tell when Brandy’s lurking round the corner just by getting a whiff of her perfume.”
“What job’s that going to get me?”
“Maybe you could be like one of those police dogs that track down criminals?” suggested Prad. “Or you could sniff out truffles, like those pigs in France! There’s loads of money in truffles.”
“I somehow doubt it’s the pigs that are getting rich,” I said, giving him the stink eye.
“How about journalism?” said Simon. “Mr Dempster’s always saying how good your Whit’s Wit posts are, even the ones Brandy refuses to publish. And it’s not as if you’re short of an opinion.”
I didn’t want to seem too pleased with Simon’s suggestion, in case it gave him any ideas, but I secretly kind of liked it. I’d always tried to get out of writing for the school blog because it was Larrie Central, but if she wasn’t around, maybe I could be the one making news at Whitlam.
Al Miller sees the writing on the wall.