For those of us in our late 30s just beginning to wrestle with the privacy settings on our Facebook pages, we have an unlikely trailblazer, and it's Tom Green. Like us, he grew up in a world where answering machines and Atari consoles counted for high technology, but he's spent much of his time since coming to grips with--and taking advantage of--every technological advance that's come down the pike.
Since he launched his cable-access TV show in Canada a quarter century ago, Green has been early-adopting in a big way, including an Internet talk show that's taped in his living room. Next up? A web-based comedy network, which will be "a home not only for my show, but for other people who want to do something that's different." Green is currently in talks with the sponsors, investors and "angel investors" that will fund the project.
And so the web-startup guy (who just happens to be a famous comedian) and Art Attack had a not-particularly-funny, it's-only-7:30 a.m.-in-L.A. chat about the future of media, the future of privacy, and the effects one will have on the other.
"I started my television show in 1994-95. Literally the last 25 years of my life are available for perusal on You Tube," Green says. "Privacy is something that I've given up on. I (always) knew what it felt like to have people critiquing you. Now everybody who has a Facebook page knows what it's like to have a photograph of themselves circulating and commented on by people they don't know."
And there's something else Tom Green wants you to know: Married people shouldn't be on Facebook. (Video NSFW)
"Everyone's sort of famous in their own way now," Green says. "I don't think people have necessarily come to grips with the fact that...that kind of lack of privacy is not something that's natural. Putting yourself out there like that can make you kind of crazy. It's going to have serious impacts on our world and society. (But) everything I've done I've done completely on purpose," says Green. "I've been so immersed in the web for so long, I've started to poke fun at it, find some of the pitfalls, and kind of make fun of it. That's what comedy is."
Oh, right, comedy: Tom Green will perform at the Houston Improv from January 21st through the 23rd. We bet it'll be really funny.