Sucker for Internet Drama

So long as I’m not in it. Big emphasis on that.

I enjoy a UI tweak here and there. So I often find myself browsing WoW forums looking at what others have done and what’s new and hot. While browsing a blog that offered a tutorial on Lunarsphere (http://dreambound-druid.blogspot.com/2009/03/lunarsphere.html) I came across another of her posts about identity theft. This was about a very specific kind of identity theft.

Since the Internet was born there was always the paranoid and well deserved voice in our head that screamed “How do I know this person is really the person they say they are?”

This easily sidetracked me and brought me to the interesting story of a blogger named Ferarro. Get your juicy details here: http://www.wow.com/2009/05/31/the-curious-case-of-ferarro/ . Cliff notes: Someone (male or female) stole a girl’s pictures, videos, blogs, and other general information and passed if off as their own. Apparently this person then began telling more and more lies to cover it up.

Kae (blogger of Dreambound) posted a link to an even more interesting read. Big Bear Butt Blog. In case you didn’t read his article here is a little snip snip of it:

Well, as an example of one kind of comment I’ve had in the past, there is that person that wrote a comment to a post I made about my love of bacon, telling me that he was outraged, that meat was murder, and asking me how I would like it if they ate my son? And then posted a Googlemaps link to my exact house street address… and the park across the street.I think that pretty much says it all. Do you need further examples? I don’t think so. I think having someone track down where I live and threaten to eat my son is enough of an example to prove my point. And this was before my name was on the banner at the head of the website. That was back when the banner just said Big Bear Butt.

Personally if I ever found a link to my place I don’t think I would blog for awhile! I remember hearing in high school that most people don’t realize they are being stalked. I in turn don’t think most people realize they are stalking. Take for example: I was waiting for my boyfriend to return my call for 3 hours. He is normally very quick to respond to texts and missed calls. So while still waiting I decided to check xbox.com and see if he was online. Sure enough he was. He had no idea I was checking up on him. Would you consider this stalking? Would you even consider it creepy? Having typed it out.. ya I think I was a little creepy for doing it.

But let us discuss the Ferraro case. The internet drama that brought non-ret pallys to a site they never would of visited.

Let’s start with TechDarling. I think it was very ignorant to place so much personal data out there for anyone to take, use, and abuse. Was it niave to think that no one would do anything? Whether it be taking and using her information for their own personal gain or to actually go to the point of stalking her and hurting her. Part of me feels bad for her, but the other half makes me just shake my head in disappointment for her own decision to post all that she did.

I’ve gotten to the point of just sighing at Ferraro. He/she/it probably dug themselves into a bigger hole than they planned on. If she is a girl the mere pressure placed on females to show their picture never ends. I remember first logging on to AOL back in the days of dial up. Entering chat rooms and being greeted with “A/S/L/Pic?” If I didn’t have a pic no one would talk to me.

Of course the pressures to still post a pic are upon me. If I don’t then it is automatically assumed I’m fat and ugly. However I view it as a win win. Not only do I not post my pic, but it makes these idiotic pervs move to someone else. The good people, the good guys, the good girls that don’t care about my pic are the ones that I want to associate with, not the others.

There is a girl in one of my old linkshells. To my knowledge, she was given the typical harassment of “OMG You’re a girl?! You should post your pic!” So she did. I viewed the thread and saw why she was confident with posting them. She was very pretty. She posted more and more pictures and as it went on they began to highlight more and more of her curves. Captions began to include “This is when I got drunk in Mexico!” and “No one thinks mine are real!”

The harassment got worse. Now they wanted more. They wanted to know where she lived, phone numbers, if she had a webcam, etc. She stopped posting pictures. You see, you may think it will stop with just one picture, but it will never stop it will only get worse. See Ferraro, they had to continue to give more and it finally caught up with them.

What do you think about internet stalking?