I realized as I went to write this, that I'd never been to Gawker before. I feel really slimy for having done so, because I just don't like that sort of, well, gawking. I don't care what Lindsay Lohan wore in court. I don't care that Reese Witherspoon went to the grocery store in her sweatpants. I don't care that Mark Zuckerberg has a penchant for gray shirts.

I don't care, I say. But dammit, I clicked.

"Mark Zuckerberg's Age of Privacy is Over," read the title (which sounded oddly familiar). It's over, apparently, because Gawker had followed Zuckerberg around for the weekend, photographing him. It's over, apparently, because Gawker posted 17 photos of Zuckerberg on their website.

Pageviews and Paparazzi

Celebrity. Paparazzi. Pageviews. I'm a blogger. I get it. Zuckerberg. Privacy. Pageviews. It worked: I clicked. But I'm not sure what I think about the message it was ostensibly to send to Zuckerberg or the commentary it was to offer on Facebook privacy.

i have mixed feelings about conflating the paparazzi treatment that Zuckerberg received with the changes to Facebook's privacy policy, although certainly they can both be accused of invading people's privacy to generate pageviews and revenue.

Despite oversimplified arguments "for or against" (Facebook) privacy, I think our notions of public and private are fairly nuanced, both on- and offline. It's not either all public (all on Gawker) or all anonymous.

I'd also argue that, for better or worse, most people have different privacy expectations for themselves and for public figures. (Personally I prefer to demand transparency from public officials, than ask they necessarily surrender their privacy.)

Having Gawker on his doorstep doesn't really a work as an act of vengeance for upsetting an online culture of anonymity: "See how it feels to have something you thought was private appear online!!"

Public Figures, in Public

Mark Zuckerberg is 212th richest man in the world. He does not seem to relish the public limelight to be sure, but he is the CEO of company worth hundreds of billions of dollars, arguably one of the most important companies of our time. True, few geeks have risen to the level of stardom where paparazzi track their moves, but Zuckerberg, like it or not -- The Facebook Effect on shelves and major motion picture pending -- is a public figure, a celebrity.

I think Facebook has failed to respect their users' privacy. I see paparazzi as invasive and hounding and destructive. Their goal is to snap embarrassing photos, to cultivate scandal. They target pubic figures in public, but at the margins of what's considered "public space." In public, of course, anyone is supposedly "fair game," whether the cameras belong to the paparazzi or the press corps or a closed-circuit TV. But there are different sorts of public(s). There are times and places and situations where, whether we're movie stars or not, we recognize that we should "act" a certain way. This isn't an untruth or a distortion of who we are; it's a facet. It's a performance.

Performances, on the Margins of What's Public

Just as with any other online space, Facebook users "perform" their identities there. As we are tied to our real names and as we are asked to verify our connections with "friends" on Facebook, I'd argue that our performances there, while partially public, have a certain layer of intimacy, a certain expectation of privacy to them.

Is this really akin to the margins of public space where paparazzi lurk? Are the motivations and the aftermath of these photographers and Facebook so similar?