Scrolling through the banal postings of everyday Facebook this week, I at first laughed and then recoiled in horror as a Christmas image came rolling into view. Yes, I realise it’s only August but bear with me.
Last Christmas, my sister and her three little bears had been visited by an elf from Santa’s workshop. The elf — theirs was called Elfie — had been sent by Santa to look over the children for a few weeks leading up to the big day — Christmas — to ensure that the children were behaving themselves and not doing anything that would get them on the ‘naughty’ list. Elfie had come to be a guardian of sorts; the kind of tattle tale that would usually provoke hate, now turned into a lovable imp.
However, Elfie wasn’t an angel, and would often be found in the mornings with its head stuck down the cereal box or hiding behind the TV. Yet, diligently and like the good elf it was, little Elfie reported back to Santa and sure enough, the children got all the gifts they asked for last year.
Now, as much as I thought that this was a touching addition to the Christmas lore for children, what I saw on Facebook shocked me to my core.
It was a box with Elfie’s face on it. And in the box was a surveillance camera. A ‘toy’ dummy surveillance camera so that Elfie and Santa could ‘pretend’ to watch your child’s every move in the event that they were behaving badly before Christmas. On the cover of this odious Orwellian object, a little picture of a gleeful Elfie had a speech bubble flowing from its mouth “Hey! I’m watching you!” the sprite shouted. Welcome to the 21st Century, all. Get your child prepared for constant surveillance while they’re still too young to develop a taste for freedom.
I was aghast. Do we want our children thinking Santa, or anyone else for that matter, is watching their every move 24 hours a day? Has the world gone mad or am I just some liberal hippy from a bygone era when privacy was allowed and generally favoured? Have I become the mad minority? Should I be wearing a tin foil hat? Should Elfie be watching me?
As Elfie smiled out of that colourful, sparkly and admittedly exciting-looking box, I thought of the round, black object ‘with real blinking lights’ being hoisted into the corner of the living room in my sister’s house and the children being told that Elfie or even Santa himself, was watching them. Would they behave differently knowing Elfie (who was fast becoming evil Elfie in my mind) was recording their every move?
I’m sure many of you will think that it’s ‘just a bit of fun’. But I’m sure there are studies that show that children need privacy too, or at least the feeling that their every move isn’t being micromanaged by adults, or even elves. Where is it going to end? Perhaps Elfie will go rogue with a group of dissident pixies and demand conscription, or even biometrics, lists of known acquaintances and knowledge of ideological leanings. It’s a future that seems to belong in the past.
Shockingly, there didn’t seem to be anyone else thinking the same thing as me as I checked the comments section filled with delighted parents. Elfie is infiltrating the minds of everyone, it seems. Will someone think of the children? As hordes of parents rush out to buy their cameras I fear for the future of humankind.
But this is one Christmas cracker who won’t be taken in by Elfie and his ilk. I’ll be watching them very closely, as they are undoubtedly watching all of us. And I doubt I’ve been a good girl this year.
Christina Curran is a journalist currently studying a Masters in International Relations at Queen’s University, Belfast.
