At a house party last January, explicit photos of myself and a few other friends were taken. The photos were innocent and the party was great fun. I felt comfortable running amok in the nude surrounded by a great group of friends; I felt free and happy and I loved that I was so close to these people to the point where I could express myself in my most vulnerable state. The photos were taken by a few of my friends and we all laughed and joked about it the next day. However, there was one photo, of just me and one other (male) friend where I was completely exposed (he wore boxers) that was sent to other people; people who I wasn't comfortable with seeing. Obviously, I was furious that someone would send the photo to other people so I asked everyone who had the pictures to make sure they had deleted them to put an end to all of this. I was also frustrated that it was the one photo where I was exposed. None of the other photos that were taken that night had been shared with anyone else - why me?
After it had blown over, I was hopeful that the pictures weren't going to go any further. To my distress, a few months later I received a message informing me that the photo was on a website called 4chan where I had been labelled as the actress, Alison Brie. I wanted to crawl into a hole, never leave my house, run away, it was all so confusing I just wanted to disappear somehow. I then tried my best to investigate to find the culprit but no one owned up and I quickly gave up, feeling hopeless and betrayed (again).
A year has now passed and the news came out that yesterday Jennifer Lawrence's iCloud was hacked into and her naked photos were stolen and put up for public scrutiny. The news was appalling to say the least; it's a complete violation of privacy. I even saw a post circulating on tumblr with not only Jennifer Lawrence's pictures but a lot of other female celebrities too. In admist these photos, to my absolute horror, was my photo. Again, it was entitled "Alison Brie". The explicit images have over 4,000 notes, this means they have been acknowledged by over 4,000 tumblr users and probably seen by a whole lot more. I was infuriated that the picture was still gaining online attention. I also did some google research and found that not only had the picture been on 4chan last year and Tumblr this morning, it was now circulating on Reddit, IGN, bazaardaily.co.uk and imgur.com too. All of these with rocketing views.
With all hope lost in finding out who the perpetrator was through countless Facebook messages to my friends, this is a message to Tumblr, Reddit, IGN, imgur.com, bazaardaily.co.uk and 4chan.
I urge these sites to;
a) make reporting the pictures easier for users
b) have stricter controls on the content of these sites
c) and to aknowledge that these photos are not only a violation of trust and privacy but they are a crime and need to be dealt with seriously.
The hype that surrounds these nude celebrity pictures may grant a sense of power, of twisted, perverted power to those who search and share these crimes; but that's it for the perpetrators, one moment of power.
But for me, for Jennifer Lawrence, and for many others, this violation will stay with us, the victims, for years to come. It will affect any career I undertake, it has and will continue to affect my confidence and the trust I have for people, and it has damaged my opinion of the internet; an inescapable aspect of our culture.
The hype that surrounds these nude celebrity pictures may grant a sense of power, of twisted, perverted power to those who search and share these crimes; but that's it for the perpetrators, one moment of power.
But for me, for Jennifer Lawrence, and for many others, this violation will stay with us, the victims, for years to come. It will affect any career I undertake, it has and will continue to affect my confidence and the trust I have for people, and it has damaged my opinion of the internet; an inescapable aspect of our culture.
19 Comments
There are two pictures from that party. The one you mentioned here and another where your friend has his boxers removed and other friends gathered around, one of them topless. Sour news, but I figured you should know.
ReplyDeleteAhahaha you fucking thick cunt!!
ReplyDeleteI got the pics Emily and I jerk off to them a few times a week. That's what you're whore ass gets haha stupid twat.
ReplyDeleteNakedvegancooking
ReplyDeleteI'm very sorry this has happened to you. Being a big fan of Alison Brie I have been telling people posting the pics on tumblr that they are not of her and have managed to get a few people to delete their posts (probably more because they are uninterested if the photos are not of Alison rather than any kind of real guilt though). Neither you or Alison deserve this kind of unwanted attention but sadly I think the whole "once it's uploaded online it stays there forever" thing will remain true but hopefully once the news filters through that the pic is not of Alison and the buzz surrounding the leak fade away the pictures will start getting buried/reported and the deleted photos will no longer be re-uploaded.
ReplyDeleteStay strong. Hopefully this blows over by the weeks end.
Stop making such a fuss about it. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people in your position. What makes you think that you are that one special case that people would truly care about? You fucked up, had some naked pictures taken and now they're all over the internet. This has been happening ever since the internet was made public- your case is not unique.
ReplyDeleteHowever, this is a good thing. You say "it will affect any career I undertake", but that's utter bullshit. First of all, people would have never known it was you, if you hadn't started making such a big deal of it. Secondly, and more importantly, do you honestly think that the mediocre job you'll be working would actually be made impossible by such an idiotically minor incident as this? You were naked on a party, get over it already.
We've all been there, and if anybody were to not hire you because of some shit you did way back when, then that's not the people you'd want to be working for anyways.
What I'm trying to say is: it's been done, and there's no stopping it now. The only one actually bringing it back in the spotlight now is you yourself, so stop it. It's really not such a big deal. I, and most of the rest of the world, have absolutely no clue who you are, nor the rest of the thousands of girls that have nude selfies or whatever floating around there on the internet. And your pics are not even that bad yet- I've seen way, way worse.
No one would have known that pictures were you if you didn't say anything. Only the people who were at the party would be able to recognize you. You're stupid. Your blog is shit. Stop trying to get attention. This whole celebrity thing is stupid. When we're all dead what will any of this matter? Bla bla bla violation of privacy. The person that leaked that picture did you wrong, not every person on the internet. People just saw something attractive and wanted to fap, they didn't know the picture was taken without consent or the story behind it. Any thing you say could be false unless proven. Rule#1: One it's on the world wide web it no longer belongs to you. We caused you no harm, the person who uploaded the picture is the one that betrayed you.
ReplyDeleteI got no enjoyment out of seeing those pictures untill i knew you didnt want me to.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry Emily. This is ridiculous and some of the comments on here are so disgusting that I cannot believe people would be so stupid as to say them let alone think them.
ReplyDeleteThis is a horrible horrible thing that someone did to you, hopefully it will blow over soon, hopefully you will get some justice out of this, but in the unfortunately likely case that you won't, know that you aren't alone. Don't give in to all these awful and shitty comments people have posted because they are from people who are ignorant and cruel, not people you want to waste your time worrying about what they think. You are a strong and beautiful person, thank you for being so brave and blogging about this, hopefully this will at least bring to attention that this sort of behaviour is hurtful and actually illegal. Keep strong
Thank you, Cat <3
DeleteShut up
ReplyDeleteYour boring ass feminism try hard shit pisses everyone off and bores the rest so get over yourself and your twisted attention seeking shit. Also wtf is woman not wife about?! A man becomes a husband so fucking sort your life out retard and keep your shit to yourself
ReplyDeleteYou've got nice tits though.
ReplyDeleteAnyone got a link?
ReplyDeleteNot a sex crime.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost like you're loving the attention. You can't be this stupid to believe you can actually remove every trace of it from the internet?! All you've done by speaking out about it via your personal blog and twitter accounts is make a digital link between this nude picture of "Alison Brie" and yourself. You couldn't just keep quiet, could you? No, because then you wouldn't be able to play the victim and get more attention/fame.
ReplyDeleteLike others have said, this happens to thousands of women in a lot worse ways than this. You think you're so special because this has happened to you and it's vile. If you'd kept quiet, it would've died and you could've pretended it never existed. Well done for drawing attention to yourself.
Also, this feminism shite you spout reminds me of someone who took a sociology lesson, read a few feminist books and then thinks that women deserve more than men. If this happened to that guy friend in the photo, he would've been called a rapist because you were drunk, he wouldn't have been able to play the victim like you are. Get over yourself, stop trying to preach things. Opinions should be asked for, not forced onto others. Women deserve equality, which means you should get used to that photo being spread, because it's fucking hilarious that it's happened and you felt the need to link your name to it.
Seriously, those comments disgusts me. When did the human race become so full of bullshit? The fact that she is not the only woman with leaked nude does not mean it's normal and we shouldn't do something about it. This is fucking non-sense. Imagine if a guy gets shot, and you'd say to him : "Don't overeact, lots of people have been shot before you, and honestly, I've seen way, waaaay worse." Do you see how fucked up your logic is?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'm 100% with you and I hope you can get justice for this.
I have one more thing to say : this disgusting leak of female (mostly) nudes is turning into something that I hate : Slut-shaming. A woman should be able to do whatever the fuck she wants to do with her body, and take pictures if she wants to, the problem has nothing to do with that, the problem is sick people who hack it/post it without consent.
But, I have to agree with one thing, you shouldn't have posted all this with your real name, because now the link will probably be permanent. But you have the right to say that it's not okay at all to put your nudes on internet!
When/if i found out people thought it was Alison brie, i woulda just pretended i didn't know it was me. I do agree you seem to be playing the victim card here. I dont see what the problem is. If i had a nude of me out and had an amazing body or was told i look like a celebrity that would pump up my self esteem. So im kinda baffled as to why you even care
ReplyDeleteBtw. Your pictures are now being sent in a torrent that is being seeded by over 8000 people and downloaded by 10's of thousands more. And you'll probably get rich off of this, which im sure is the feminist thing to do?
ReplyDelete