The Digital Camera Will Not Save You: Self-Surveillance, Camp-pensation, and The Internalized Voyeur

things i notice partying 5 days a week, reflections on newfound attraction to men (and how yall got me fucked up)

i. self-surveillance and camp-pensation

i am not a photographer. i just have a camera. distinction needed. i was carrying a disposable camera around throughout the late 2010s and went digital in 2020. a few years later, there was a convenient renewed cultural interest in spontaneous, imperfect, quick-shuttered photography — cobrasnake wannabes fill the streets. i dont know what an iso is. the extent of my technical knowledge goes back to my middle school art teacher emphasizing the rule of thirds. i just hit buttons and get lucky because im always around people willing to do crazy shit on cam. but sometimes people camp it up on purpose and it’s obvious. what would otherwise be a photo of a CrAzY WiLD nIGhT becomes an artifact of cringe. im not saying you’re not allowed to be silly on cam. im saying its exhausting to be on the viewing end of constant performance. (don’t be a bitch, im reminding myself. you were 19 once too, i say at 22. a few years from now i’ll be writing something else and have to remind myself, you were 22 once too.)

i’ve thought about what it means to be always carrying a camera. the camera is a means of documenting every moment, but it’s also mediating every moment. it’s interrupting every moment. (that being said, here are some photos where i kinda ate). i didn’t even realize i had a philosophy about photography, but i realize that i try to have the camera be as unobtrusive to the moment as possible. it’s like my third eye. everything that happens in front of the camera would’ve happened in its absence. i like to tell myself that. except im a big fat liar.

i said this once and surprised myself:

something about being in front of a camera makes people cartoonish...so much of partying is just making it look like you’re having fun and then immediately going back to being on your phone — stonefaced and looking for a place that will make you have as much fun as you look like you’re having in peoples’ film prints and online archives. half the party is looking for the next party. half the party is consciously and neurotically trying to recreate some skins party montage for whoever might have their cameras out.

camp-pensation (noun): acting crazier to compensate for how boring you feel / are scared you look

yall camp it up so much and so often that you dont know how to act anymore. im not saying you’re not allowed to pose silly for the camera. but theres something to be said about how much we over-perform and overcompensate to become the people we want people to think we are. theres something so freakishly insidious about making sure we look crazy for the cam. about throwing ourselves around on the floor until we get the shot right. you didn’t see me death drop? ill do it again and this time in front of you.

oh my god you’re soooo crazy we can’t take you anywhereeeeee.

but honestly, the whole camp-pensation thing (i can’t tell if the name sticks or if i sound stupid) is just one side effect of the epidemic of self-surveillance. we know how we want to be seen, we see ourselves, and we adjust accordingly, performing everything in such an exaggerated way — apathy, nonchalance, intellectualism. we’ve become caricatures of ourselves. (that’s something i’ll write later).

there was a girl in high school i disliked so intensely and i didnt have the words to explain why until very recently. everything she said sounded rehearsed, everything she said sounded like she was waiting for a laugh track, and every time she spoke she looked around so expectantly. she sounded like a bad disney actor delivering a punchline. and it’s not a bad thing to want to make people laugh. it’s not a bad thing to want to be funny. but i think what made me dislike her so much is how she depended on an audience. (and maybe it’s one of those “it repulses you because in it you see yourself” type things. maybe i just didn’t like how openly she showed desire for the things i yearned for in secret. whatever. my beef with my reflection is an essay for another day).

we’re in an everything-opticon. you have to be hot in case someone’s taking artsy club photos. you have to be crazy in case someone’s taking trashy club photos. you have to be funny in case someone’s writing about that night on substack (hello). group chats aren’t people talking anymore it’s now just a competition of who can be the wittiest soon-to-be-screenshot. i am guilty. he without sin… stones… whatever. it’s exhausting and i hate to say it but it’s like crack cocaine every time someone posts as screenshot of one of my texts.

before i get substack canceled, here’s what im NOT saying:

• im NOT saying people aren’t having fun. im NOT saying all fun is manufactured and choreographed. i AM saying that the prospect of surveillance and documentation makes people hyper-vigilant to looking like they’re having more fun than they are.

• im NOT saying it’s bad to want to be funny or hot or seen a certain way. i AM saying that it’s scary we can’t seem to do anything without considering the third-person viewer. we can’t go crazy without making sure we look crazy enough. we can’t dance without making sure we’re looking hot enough. it’s an internalized voyeur that’s not even relegated exclusively to the public sphere anymore.

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ii. the internalized voyeur (alternate title: “it was easier being a lesbian, which is really fucked up when you think about it”)

this idea of an internalized voyeur is something i didn’t really start theorizing until i started having sex with men. (for reference, i grew up a lesbian from age 12 and it wasn’t until i was 18 that i started getting attracted to dudes. don’t ask me what switched. i have some theories that again, require another essay). im giving you this rundown because there’s something to be said about patriarchy and female self-surveillance. i didn’t care about how flat my stomach was until i considered that men were noticing it. i didn’t give a fuck if my girlfriend saw the rolls in my abdomen. and not to get all boomer but yeah, it is those damn phones. the idea that we can (and will) look at ourselves whenever we want, and the fact that every second is a second that could potentially be documented has made us hyper-vigilant and hyper-aware and hyper-depressed.

i wrote these next few parts when i was 19 and it’s unfortunately still as applicable 3 years later. yeah i can legally drink and im off my parents’ insurance but im still just as depressed. short end of the stick.

a body taking up space is a body performing, and a body performing is a body to be consumed. agnès rocamora talks about this idea of ‘la passante’ — she’s a female passerby who’s meant to be a fleeting vision that inspires the male viewer. she has no existence outside of being an object of the male gaze. if she is not being consumed, she does not exist. her only purpose is to be an inspiration to whatever man is watching her. it’s a scene i can imagine well. some man — maybe a struggling writer, definitely drunk — stumbles through the streets of paris in the early morning. he sees this woman, walking with purpose and an angry look on her face. he sees this woman who does not see him and, in his awe, fails to pick himself up before she disappears forever. he, however, is now inspired, and relives the 3 seconds where he saw her, and is able to refuel his literary career through all of the fantasies this woman provides.

i didn’t / don’t think la passante was an aspirational figure of mine, but a representation of an unfortunate reality that i had placed myself in as soon as i started getting with dudes. i don’t exist unless my beauty lets me exist to other people.

who am i if not beautiful? who am i if not desired? we’ve come to the point where the self and the projected self are inseparable. women have already internalized the male gaze, acting, even when they are alone, as if there is some man watching them and judging them for how attractive they look while taking their pills or sitting on the toilet. every time i find myself hungover and slumped over the toilet, i think, hm. this would go great with i wanna be adored by the stone roses playing in the background and some wong kar wai type filmography. suck in your stomach even if you’re alone in your room, look at how pretty i am while i think no one is watching me — doesn’t the way i arch my back even in bed make you (invisible male voyeur) want to have me? unflare your nostrils, look stressed but not crazed so then you get that working-girl semi-exhausted secretary-in-a-porno allure. i need to make myself look more alluring to whatever invisible perv is in the corner of my room because god forbid that he see me on an off day. because there’s a man for whom my sole purpose is to be beautiful — once he finds me ugly, then what point is there? the thing about men and about men watching women is that there will always be some man getting off to you — if you’re in short skirts and heels, you’re a slut and that’s sexy. and if you’re in pants and trying to make yourself small, you’re a prude who’s hiding something, and therefore you’re a challenge and that’s enticing.

there’s a constant need to be palatable (that’s gonna need another essay) and reading that margret atwood quote made me feel lighter — she put words to something i didn’t know i was feeling. and i think it’s because we know the men are watching and jacking off to us — isn’t it natural to want to know what they’re seeing? isn’t it natural to want them to have something good to jack off to?

i wish i had a happier note to end on, but writing about my relationship to men and the male gaze is inherently depressing. i also exclusively publish at like 3am so that probably doesn’t help. if i could say anything to any young girls reading this, it would be to kill the man inside your head. stop imagining an invisible iphone / film camera / canon powershot in front of you. constantly sucking in your stomach is bad for your body (and it wasn’t until like two months ago that i started making an active effort to let myself breathe fully at home).

if my loving words aren’t getting through to you, then hear this: people can always tell when you’re hamming it up for the camera, and their (our) tolerance for it is waning. have fun because you want to have fun, not because you want to look like you’re having fun.

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author’s note: sorry i know it’s been awhile. there’s a lot of stuff i’ve wanted to write about but i’ve been really depressed but i want to thank

emily north

for her recent essay that really got me out of my funk. this essay has been 80% done and sitting in my drafts since september. i also see a lot of you have subscribed and i feel bad that your first impression of me was this weird hiatus. i got mad shit to say. see yall soon.