Mercandetti, for example, publishes books. Her talents and likeability greatly lends to her position’s access to individuals and worlds that are of interest to us. LeFrak and Friedberg are an active couple in New York political, philanthropic and media circles. They know everybody. Terry Allen Kramer is one of New York’s most prominent longtime theatrical producers (as was her lunch partner Mr. Nederlander). Steven Rubenstein is a public relations man in the business of affecting just that optimally. Many others, unnamed, hold comparable positions and sway in the city and in the world; like it or not even when we don’t.
And it’s all right there in this spacious gallery of Michael McCarty’s contemporary art collection, brightened by the natural light from the windows on 55th street and the windows of the back garden; amidst a peripatetic waitstaff in their signature pink buttondowns, ties and khakis, these characters in the drama we call media and culture, are comfortably lunching and talking. The former is very good but the latter is the real lunch.
To Sort of Change the subject: fallout. Many New Yorkers who’ve attained some kind of prominence in the community like the attention that prominence brings. They like the access to business or intellectual or social peers, or those who might be. That is part of the appeal of the community. Out of that can arise another Paris Hilton (I had to say that), or Tinsley Mortimer (couldn’t help it), or countesses posing on camera as New York housewives. Or Steve Schwarzman or Nouriel Roubini, or your aspiring Mr. and Mrs. Gotrocks who can fund the whole kaboodle. Let’s call it a meeting of the minds, although anthropologists will probably come up with more accurate descriptions.
Here at NYSD we’re all too aware of this metropolitan/cultural/social phenomenon obviously, and if you scan our pages, you see a lot of these players on the front and center stage known as New York. We’re even more aware of them because, as Alexandra Lebenthal explains so accurately in her new novel “The Recessionistsas,” many are up and ready to be noticed, particularly by a camera lens. It’s all in the Warholian fifteen minutes.
With the arrival of the digital we have become, among other things, camera-crazy. Walking to Michael’s yesterday, I saw were three different women -- definitely from (way) outta town from the looks of them -- posing for their boyfriend’s/husband’s digital lens in front of Tiffany. Across the street two more were taking pictures of Donald Trump’s tree garden on his Trump Tower that sits next to Tiffany. And next to them someone was having himself snapped standing by the Playboy plaque on an office building entrance. Connections to New York prominence for one and all.
So it did come as a surprise here at NYSD, that in the past year or so we have had numerous requests to remove a picture from our pages. The reasons vary. One woman wrote that she’d had a nosejob and didn’t want anyone to remember her the way she used to look. Another broke up with her boyfriend (and would like to kill ‘im). Another request came from a man who paid a publicist thousands of dollars to get himself in the pictures posted and loved it until his wife noticed the woman by his side all the time was someone she didn’t know (but he did). Divorce lawyers consulted, the man was looking to re-write history with a photo removal.
Another was a woman claiming she was being stalked, had gone to the police, identified the stalker, and had been “advised by the police” to remove all images of herself from the web. This, after the stalker has been identified. Did they think he’d need to be reminded of what his “stalkee” looks like?
Others requesting removal don’t like the group they’re in the picture with. Or don't want people to think they're friends with someone. Or they don’t like their hair. Or their hair color. Or the dress they were wearing. Or they “just don’t like it.” Or their boss wants it removed. They tell you these things.
“Please remove my picture.” The other day I got a call from a Public Relations man asking if we’d remove a photo of man and wife and two children from party that took place a couple of years ago. For security reasons, I was told. I’m sympathetic to that idea. Although the husband is a prominent man in his business and the pictures were of a charity event organized by the wife, and the picture was taken by a photographer who was hired to photograph the event.
Security risk is often the “reason.” It gets complicated. You can wonder just what the “security” is protecting. Sometimes absurd, sometimes serious. More than once it’s been someone about to enter the fray of public discourse (in the tabloids).
Our policy is to remove the name. Not pictures; no changing layouts containing scores of people, just for one individual (although that never occurs to those making the request). Many requests are from pages that are five and even ten years old, pages buried deep in the archive, rarely seen, except: Google.
By removing a name from a picture, the image itself will eventually be removed from Google -- which is the cookie monster in this story. You know the phrase “Google him ... Google her ...” Someone Googles someone and lo, up comes New York Social Diary and their smiling (or not always) faces.
I remind those seeking to return to anonymity that in the future when venturing out into the carnival, to stay away from cameras. It’s still very easy to be anonymous; it’s just not fun for the ego. However, the fact remains, we have lost our privacy. Or what we knew as Privacy. Some who are aware of this transition fear it will take us back to the Dark Ages, others are oblivious (more of those). We shall see.
This loss of privacy is not because of NYSD or any other web site. It is a result of our human obsession with technology. And it is so widespread, and so infiltrated into our daily lives, that it must be evolutionary.
For good or for bad, we are growing used to it, and even promote it. Everyone’s a paparazzi; everyone’s a voyeur given the right set of circumstances. There’s no such thing as bad publicity anymore (for a lot of people); just ask Paris and her scores of imitators. The term “have you no shame?” is a relic like much of our language of social cohesives. Just is. And yes, it’s a bore after awhile too. So go figure.
Although sometimes the facelifts are interesting. And the lip contortions. And the Ipana (toothpaste) smiles. |
