On Sunday, the Internet exploded when every 12-year-old boys’ dreams came true.
On Sunday, a poster on the internet message board 4chan leaked naked pictures of many celebrities (including Kate Upton and Jennifer Lawrence). This event has been referred to as “The Fappening”. For those of you unaware, fapping is another word for masturbating. The leaked pictures of so many sought-after celebrities have led to an increased amount of fapping, leading people to call this event “The Fappening”.
Allegedly, the leaks’ source was a hacker who was able to access the pictures by hacking into Apple’s iCloud service and retrieve the pictures.
The scandal swept the internet and continues to do so. On Reddit, a subreddit made for the event called “TheFappening” had over 100,000 subscribers in just 24 hours.
Needless to say, a lot of people are paying more attention to this than anything else that’s going on this week.
Reactions from celebrities have been diverse and extreme. Jennifer Lawrence’s representatives took to her Twitter account saying, “This is a flagrant violation of privacy. The authorities will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos.” On the other hand, Kirsten Dunst, who also had photos leaked, commented on her Twitter,“Thank you iCloud” with pizza and turd emojis.
The leaker has been posting the pictures on 4Chan and has said that there are still many more pictures to leak.
Though there has been a great amount of coverage on many aspects of this issue, very little has been devoted to what a blatant invasion of privacy this is. Because of how sought after and appreciated these pictures are, people have voluntarily turned a blind eye to how they were obtained.
If someone we know did something similar to someone we know, family, friends, what have you, they would immediately be lambasted as a creep and you would most likely try your best to distance yourself from that person.
The truth is, posting nude photos is unarguably an invasion of privacy. For some reason, when this happens to celebrities, people treat it differently. Our society puts celebrities on a pedestal when it comes to these things, which is absurd.
We also have to understand the role of gender in this discourse. Many would argue that we don’t live in a society that constantly sexualizes women, but the truth is, we do. All one needs to do is turn on a TV and wait 30 seconds for the new Burger King commercial that paradoxically features women in bikinis eating greasy hamburgers on top of a fabulous car. So naturally, living in a world like ours, when something like this happens, people don’t take the time to think of what the celebrities are going through. After all, we’ve been wired not to look at them as people, but as artifacts made for arousal.
I think it’s odd how outraged people were once the NSA’s surveillance programs became public knowledge. They were so upset that the government was monitoring our information so carefully, but when someone does it on a personal level, especially in a way that includes nude celebrities, everyone is okay with it
I’ll be honest. I’ve seen the pictures; I know what they’re all about. Hell, I’m sure we all have. But when this topic comes up, it’s important to remember it from the victim’s point of view. These aren’t photos that they voluntarily put up for everyone to see, this is an illegal action that has had huge repercussions on people who have given us so much entertainment.
In the words of Kanye West, there’s only one thing you can do to an artist, say thank you.
photo credit: reddit.com
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