Picture This 2
Leonard Pitts, Jr., tackles the recent theft of pictures of well-known actresses and models. I have a few quibbles with some of what he say, but he speaks reasonably.
He starts by considering that men like pretty pictures–that’s biology. Then he moves on to the theft.
Which is precisely what’s wrong, creepy, slimy and profoundly distasteful about the hacking of those files and the posting of those pictures. Jennifer Lawrence didn’t make that choice. Nor did Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst or any of the other women whose unclothed images were stolen by unknown hackers and splashed across the Internet on Labor Day weekend by celebrity gossip Perez Hilton (he’s since apologized) and two popular message boards.
Let no one argue the women never should have taken the photos in the first place or entrusted them to digital lockboxes. To do so would come perilously close to blaming the victim for her own misfortune, something with which women who were raped were once (he should have “are,” not “were once”–ed.) all too familiar.
September 7, 2014 at 11:30 pm
I considered mentioning something about this when I saw the “hacker” was asking for payment in BitCoin. He didn’t get it, causing him to complain more about the alleged hard work and money he’d spent obtaining the materials. On Reddit. I’d like to explain why BitCoin and Reddit are associated with predatory social behavior but that’s just cyberspace enabling of creeps. Something I saw would happen 20 years ago. Leonard Pitts did a fine job.
September 9, 2014 at 11:32 pm
There is a reason why “hacker” and “slacker” rhyme.