Jim Hopkins: Just voyeurs lost in a digital world

British Big Brother star Jade Hurley. Photo / Supplied

They were talking about celebrity on the wireless this week. An American lady had written a book lamenting the fact that celebrity is now a tawdry coin. Fame has become an easy acquisition, she said, talent no longer the prerequisite of reputation.

Arguably it never was. De gustibus non est disputandum, as those crafty coves, the Romans, liked to say; "In matters of taste there can be no dispute."

We like what we like and we love whom we love and that's that. Never mind the quality, feel the vibe.

And since the Romans coined the phrase, they clearly encountered the phenomenon. You can't describe what you don't encounter. Mediocrity and celebrity have always been dance partners.

But now more than ever, according to the American lady. Today, she said, any old talentless riffraff can become a celebrity, followed by millions, known by none.

Various examples were suggested - actor Liz Hurley and British Big Brother star, Jade Goody being the most notable. But why did so many of us vicariously share the "grotesque parade" of Jade Goody's premature death, the American lady was asked. That's a good question, she replied.

One obvious answer is because we can. The world's our second-hand oyster now. We can have any colour we like, as long as it's digital.

We can Friend anyone we like, and Unfriend them, too - without ever actually meeting. "Yet each man kills the thing he loves" was Oscar Wilde's line. "By each let this be heard ... The coward does it with a kiss. The brave man with a sword."

No need for swords today. Those who live by the screen, die by the screen. "Each man" kills with a click now, long distance, like a sniper.

Celebrities txt their ex to end an affair - Itz ova, dork - then twitter an anonymous horde to boast of what they've done.

But if such things happen because they can, they also happen because we need them to. We do so little now.

We don't often rub our cheeks against the rough stubble of life. In this remote-control world, we've eliminated or overcome most of the world's true terrors; famine, hunger, poverty, epidemics and the mass carnage of 20th-century warfare. Our lives have become so safe that we pay to be frightened - in jet boats and theme parks, on rollercoasters or at the end of a bungy cord.

We've brought the world into our lounge and made our lounge the world. We're at the centre of everything and the heart of nothing. Most of what we feel is triggered by events we don't experience. Jade Goody's death, Queensland floods, a shooting in Tucson, the Radio man begging on the roadside. Like strands through this our glass, these are the days of our lives.

We're all voyeurs now. Everything is a programme - or a bulletin. What happens, doesn't happen to us. We just watch it. Whole populations sit on the sofa for hours on end, seeing wild waters rage or famous people flirt.

Celebrity and disaster are a commonplace; everyday extremes we observe but seldom experience. We flick between them with nothing more energetic than a push of the button; Channel 1, Channel 3, Channel 90, Channel 11, oh, and who's on MasterChef Haiti tonight?

Digital intensities and electronic emotions are surrogates for the lives we don't live. Our bodies aren't challenged any more. We don't grow our own food. We don't make our own things.

We don't need to walk. We don't need to work - not in the harsh, exhausting way that people did.

We don't go to sing-alongs or the music hall and press against the smelly crush of other people. We txt. We Twitter. And we watch the news.

Our bodies aren't challenged, nor are our emotions.

Not really, not daily, not by real encounters. Our intensities this week have been triggered by awful things far away that harmed people we don't know. We live vicariously so much of the time, by proxy, with other people's experiences taking us to the core of ourselves.

It is our surplus emotion, unfelt in the real world, that draws us into the lives of false celebrities.

And also the shock of real disasters. What's unfolding in Queensland is our catastrophe as well as Australia's, not only because we're watching it but also because so many New Zealanders have chosen to live where these floods have struck.

It's the wet season in Queensland and what's happening has happened before. Nature is doing what it's always done. But there's many more people living there now and many of them once lived here.

So, a land and sea away, we watch. Engaged but disconnected, horrified and helpless. Our emotions are real, but also indirect. This is how it is now.

This is how we live, in the lives of others, at a distance, moved but untouched. This is the world we have made for ourselves, full of celebrities and disasters, all passively shared through a glass brightly.