I like to watch

I'm a frequent peruser of sites like LJ Drama and Fetish Gossip (Which will hopefully return to us soon.) Both sites encourage a cynical reality check commentary that comes in contrast with the shallow basis of a lot of Internet compliments.

My reason for the frequent reading of the above is I find other people's lives fascinating. I find people fascinating. I became an Anthropology major in college because I wanted to study everyone around me. I wanted explanations for subcultures and racism. The sites above are manifestations of people sitting around at a coffee shop whilst trying to check out everyone's agenda. Whilst I might be a techie now, I'm still a people watcher at heart and this is a unique and distanced way to go about it.

It's my theory that gossip is a social check. By repeating and embellishing a story, people's actions change and are metered by the opinions they harvest. Part of my reasoning is a lot of desires aren't manifested due to a mental switch that says 'if I do this, then folks will think X of me, which will impact future goals in X way.' If someone was considering having an affair with someone and was well known in some form of social group, the alienation of a support structure would be a paramount concern. And whilst that's a positive result of the gossip chain, the flipside is also true as well. One person doesn't think this is acceptable but a lot of other people do so majority wins.

The inspiration for the above examination comes from one of the best LJ Drama posts I've seen for a while. Damien Tullier the son of Pierre Tullier was a teacher at a high school/college hybrid in what appears to be a very nice area of Florida called Stuart.
He had a wanna be popstar student named Justine Jacobs who he also used as a babysitter. Depending on who you believe, photos of the two in very un-Christian situations taken either just after or just before the school year ended have surfaced and were spread over the Internet.

Naturally, the man formerly known as Mr. Tullier has made the argument that all of this gossip and report of his affair is 'defamation.' Since he's now confirmed the allegations in interviews with the local press, that's hardly true.

The question is are the Internet surfers that posted the photos and details of the affair violating their privacy or exposing a grade A sleaze? I'd opt for the second choice. A person in a normal situation having an affair that didn't impact immediately on my life wouldn't really be any of my business beyond going 'OMG' a bit. This guy, however, used to be a teacher. One that allegedly had a history of innapropriate behavior with his students. Would I want my children going to a school where he was employed? Heavens no. The guy has a backlog of complaints that no teenage girl should have to go through. Would I want my younger sisters dating this guy? No way, he has a history of cheating on his wife.

In this case I'd say the Something Awful goons and LJDrama readers have done a bit of good. Now, if you do a Google search for Damien Tullier you can find out all about what kind of person he really is.

Edit March 21, 2007. LOL, hi Goons. :) Thanks for the warning Kevin. I'm thrilled about this recent update to Justine and Damien's tawdry life.

Tags: Damien Tullier, Justine Jacobs, drama, vigilantes