We Live in Public - Report

Ondi Timoner's documentary: "We Live In Public" gives a new inside view of the Internet, which controls our lives everyday (Including right now!). The film was focused on Josh Harris's predictions of the Internet and how the public will react to it. It explores what life will become because of the Internet and how focused peoples' lives will become around it. The way the film was played out was in a chronological fashion starting from the beginning of his Internet theories to escaping from everything he predicted. The first scene however came from the near end of the movie, which portrayed his life as pitiful and depressing. This type of format for the documentary was probably the best choice because the film was tracking the progression of Josh's life and the evolution of his theories. To have structured the film in any other way would have been a mistake, making it a lot more confusing.

Timoner's film was definitely an expository documentary because of some obvious key factors, which gave it away. There was a narrator directed at the viewer throughout the movie, taking us scene-to-scene, and explaining what was happening. Josh Harris's theories of the Internet in the near future were made, but they weren't there to convince us upon them. He said that they are going to happen, if we believe him or not. He didn't care if people bought his predictions or not because he was, and still is sure that they are going to happen. It is known that his predictions have been correct with the present day Internet. The film wasn't biased but it however didn't give us any other option for us interacting with the Internet.

The scene that stood out the most to me was the " Quiet We Live in Public" experiment. It wasn't my favourite scene, but it stood out the most for what it contained. It was extreme in what was going on in their cult. I couldn't believe that something of that proportion and reason actually happened. The activities that occurred in their establishment were radical. People using drugs, getting drunk, shooting guns, having open sex, showering together, and dancing all caught on tape creeped me out even though it was an experiment. It looked like some of the subjects seemed scared to be there, not enjoying it. By the end of the "experiment" I felt it was more of a wild fantasy of Josh's, then to see what the Internet could do to us.

A film like this is a good example of how our lives are starting to revolve around our computers and the Internet. It was proven in the film, on an exaggerated note, what could and might occur to us in the future. This is good for people to know what could happen because it could stop people from abuse their usage of the Internet by so much. The documentary gave me a sad thought that people are becoming more social on the Internet, while less social in real life, face-to-face.