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Nude celebrities on the Internet — images and video clips of famous nude women and men — describes a popular form of nudity or pornography found on the Internet.
Background
Along with almost every other communication technology ever invented, the Internet has been used to communicate pornography. One genre that has become particularly popular is pictures of nude celebrities. The demand for such images has been known for many decades — Playboy magazine is renowned for offering famous women large amounts of money to appear nude in its magazine, and more downmarket pornographic magazines search far and wide for nude pictures of celebrities taken unaware — e.g., when they are bathing topless or nude at what the subject thought was a secluded beach, or taken before the individual was well-known. The paparazzi photos are in high demand among the yellow press.
A particular category are the fake images, primarily made with various digital manipulation techniques. The possibility of civil court action restricts the availability of such photos through the print media. On the Internet, the difficulty of applying court sanction makes circulation of such photographs much less risky. Untold numbers of such photographs circulate through Usenet, and fly-by-night commercial operators, often in countries beyond the reach of U.S. courts (the celebrities concerned are more often than not from the U.S.), also offer such photos for commercial gain. Copyright restrictions are often ignored.
Origin of the images
Real Images of nude celebrities fall into four categories:
Movie snapshots: Many actors have done nude or partially nude scenes in non-pornographic mainstream films, such as R-rated Hollywood movies. Snapshots from these movies are circulated widely and can usually be recognized by the low picture quality (from video). Increased popularity of broadband Internet access makes possible the distribution of actual video clips, usually copied from DVDs [1] (http://www.mrskin.com).
Paparazzi photographs: Occasionally, celebrities are photographed in revealing real-life situations; the most common scenario is a woman sunbathing topless. The photos are usually taken from a distance and rarely reveal more than breasts.
Nude photo shoots: Mainstream sex magazines such as Playboy or photographic art magazines such as Black and White routinely feature nude shoots of celebrities. Some celebrities, prior to becoming famous, modelled nude. Digital versions of the photos are then either provided by the publisher or scanned in and distributed by a third party.
Stolen private materials: Rarely, private sexual photographs or videos are stolen or obtained from former lover/spouse and show up on the Internet. Two famous examples are Tonya Harding's "wedding video" and private videos featuring Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee.
Fake images
It's likely that the first images were created before the PC era, but it wasn't until 1990s that production and distribution of faked images became widespread. The wide availability of ever more powerful personal computers and software gave the user a wide range of tools to manipulate images. Combined with the availability and effortless distribution of base material over the Internet, this was responsible for a whole subculture of "fakers".
The fakes not only depict celebrities in conventional nudity (posing or in shots implying unawareness of the photographer or the nudity) but also during sexual intercourse or in the context of a wide variety of sexual fetishes. Sometimes the images are designed in such a way as to look like real snapshots (even enhanced to look like they have been published in a newspaper or magazine), but more often the "fakers" proudly sign their own work, and sometimes add taglines defending it as a "visual parody" protected by freedom of speech. The realism of the fakes varies greatly, with some images only immediately recognizable as fakes because of the nature of their content, and others the obvious result of unprofessional cut-and-pasting. It would be a misconception to think that fakes exist primarily with the intention to fool people or to compromise celebrities. Showing off Photoshop skills and artistic qualities becomes ever more important as the craft develops, rendering the subtle, more believable forgeries less interesting. Neither is it common practice in the faking community to release fake images 'into the wild'; dedicated newsgroups and web-forums are available to exchange manipulations, to interact with other fakirs and to organize contests.
Most fake images are made by manually combining a headshot photo (HS) of the celebrity with one or more images of another person's body (BS). The headshot images are usually taken from magazines or from official and fan Internet sites. The abundance of such photos is one of the main factors determining the number of fakes of that particular celebrity. Alternatively, nude bodyparts are introduced into original pictures of the celebrity (clothes removal fake). Body images are taken from pornographic sites, scan newsgroups etc. Depending on the intention of the maker, the body model can be similar (realistic) or completely different (outrageous parody) in complexion to the celebrity. The quality of the final result is a combination of the ability of the fakir to find a matching set of body and head pictures, and his skill in digital manipulation.
The finished images are usually tagged by the author and distributed for free in newsgroups and web forums, mostly ones that are specifically dedicated to fake images. They are then collected and redistributed by a number of free and subscription websites.
The ever growing number of fake images, many of which are not marked as such, has inspired some people to try to separate fake from real images. One such website, The Case Files of the Fake Detective (http://www.fake-detective.com/), analyzes in detail more than 300 fakes and explains how they have been made. The site mainly focusses on plausibility. Therefore, it for example does not include fakes depicting sexual action, as these are deemed unlikely to fool collectors into believing they are real. Neither is the abundance of grainy topless-sunbathing or subtle see-through and nipple-slip fakes representative for the current state of fake nudes.
The number of fake images is usually directly proportional to the popularity and perceived hotness of the celebrity and inversely proportional to her age. Among the most popular targets of fakers are movie actress Natalie Portman, TV star Sarah Michelle Gellar, singer Britney Spears and tennis player Anna Kournikova.
Fake images of male celebrities are quite rare. Their existence usually coincides with the popularity of the characters among slash fiction writers. Some examples include characters (actors) from Star Trek, The X-Files and The Lord of the Rings. There are also few fake images of underage celebrities, primarily because there aren't many child actresses who are generally perceived as hot and are popular enough, but also because of perceived illegality of underage fakes. One example of sometimes faked child celebrity is Emma Watson.
A few celebrities whose real nude Internet pictures have become mainstream items include Pamela Anderson, Tonya Harding, Tommy Lee, Chu Mei-Feng, Debra Byrne, Janet Jackson and Paris Hilton.
Celebrities have occasionally threatened legal action against websites archiving fake pictures. In 2001, the "Lair of Lux Lucre", a fake celebrity website, was threatened by pop star Britney Spears, after which all celebrity fakes of her were removed from that particular site. There have also been examples of large adult sites like 'Perfect10' taking steps against the use of their digital photographs as base-material for the fakes. Currently, the "Lair" archives more than 75,000 fake images.
Another growing area is completely artificially generated 3D images. Celebrity photos can be used as textures on artificial 3D bodies, which can then be manipulated as desired. At present, the software for producing such artificial images is not sufficiently advanced to allow laymen to generate photorealistic images.
External links
- Robb's celebs (http://www.robbscelebs.co.uk/) - a collection of female celebrity photographs of nude and sexual nature.
- Fake Club (http://www.fakeclub.com/) - an online community dedicated to celebrity fakes.
- Campfire Video (http://www.hunkvideo.com/) - a listing of male celebrity nudity in film (with a forum for posting pictures)
References
- Free Celebrity Nudes! (http://pennandteller.com/sincity/penn-n-teller/excite/celnude.html), Penn Jillette, Excite, October 15, 1997 — an early article about the phenomenon.
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