The problem is, we don’t get to control how much we know about someone’s life. It’s something that happens to us. We turn on Seinfeld, and, whether we want to or not, we think of Michael Richards’s racist rant. This movement toward knowingness began with the birth of mass media, grew in the last century, and has flowered in our moment. There is no longer any escaping biography. Even within my own lifetime, I’ve seen a massive shift. Biography used to be something you sought out, yearned for, actively pursued. Now it falls on your head all day long.
