Before anyone asks, I'm not her in any way shape or form. I'm just an innocent bystander who found her story via hitting random on TV Tropes and coming across the sock puppet page. ( The MS Scribe tale is compiled wonderfully here: http://www.journalfen.net/users/charlottelennox/784.html.) Honest, at that time my involvement in fandom meant checking Mugglenet once a day (if not more) and Going to my first Midnight Book release. In 2003 I was 12-13ish, and far too shy on top of the fact I wasn't really allowed to join any websites at the time.
For those of you who subscribe to the TL;DR (Too long; didn't read) method of internet inquiry I'll do my best to summarize:
One Woman to Rule them all. One Woman to Find Them.
One Woman to rule them all and in the Darkness bind them.
One Woman to rule them all and in the Darkness bind them.
I'm not exaggerating. One woman created (hold on let me tally) HOLY SHIT! Nearly 30 (probably more though as I'm sure I'm missing some) sock puppets. That's fake accounts for all those internet illiterate or naive. But not just the normal "OMG this person (who totally isn't me) is so fantastic isn't she?" way (which is usually executed with 1 puppet, of course she had many more) but ALSO in the "Wounded Gazelle" way. Self attack in order to gain sympathy (again usually one, maybe two. Oh no she had far more).
Why? For the sake of internet celebrity of course. Now, I'm sure we all want a little attention or 15 minutes of fame now and then. Some people are willing to go to more extreme lengths (Ala Baloon Boy, the White House gate Crashers, I call that Gate Gate).
But even in typing that I realized something. Now is the rest of the world interested in people doing stupid shit for the sake of fame. It's been happening on the internet for YEARS! Literally! Earth to real world, you think the internet is backwards and misinformed, look at yourself in comparison to what fandoms have been dealing with.
Which brings me to the title of this post, "The Internet Scares Me."
Because it does. In real life you have to do major stuff that can get you caught and reprimanded easily. The internet, not so much. All you have to do is not be overly obvious about the whole thing and you can become a BNF, which in the grand scale of internet celebrity I'm not sure where this lies. It took a grand total of six months for people to get suspicious of MsScribe and one more month to get serious accusations leveled at her. And THEN it takes a grand total of 3 1/2 years for her to finally disappear for good (kinda). It also takes about that long for people to accept and/or realize she's been pulling these stunts.
You know when your teachers told you the internet is the underbelly of society and that the worst of the worst are there and you scoffed? or at least were dubious because of the friends you made? Sometimes I wonder if that's true.
Yes, I know I can't trust EVERYONE out there, but I used to be optimistic.
I used to sit quietly in the back and observe to learn the rules of the game and be a respectful observer.
Now I'll sit back wondering how many of you are the same person.
Why? For the sake of internet celebrity of course. Now, I'm sure we all want a little attention or 15 minutes of fame now and then. Some people are willing to go to more extreme lengths (Ala Baloon Boy, the White House gate Crashers, I call that Gate Gate).
But even in typing that I realized something. Now is the rest of the world interested in people doing stupid shit for the sake of fame. It's been happening on the internet for YEARS! Literally! Earth to real world, you think the internet is backwards and misinformed, look at yourself in comparison to what fandoms have been dealing with.
Which brings me to the title of this post, "The Internet Scares Me."
Because it does. In real life you have to do major stuff that can get you caught and reprimanded easily. The internet, not so much. All you have to do is not be overly obvious about the whole thing and you can become a BNF, which in the grand scale of internet celebrity I'm not sure where this lies. It took a grand total of six months for people to get suspicious of MsScribe and one more month to get serious accusations leveled at her. And THEN it takes a grand total of 3 1/2 years for her to finally disappear for good (kinda). It also takes about that long for people to accept and/or realize she's been pulling these stunts.
You know when your teachers told you the internet is the underbelly of society and that the worst of the worst are there and you scoffed? or at least were dubious because of the friends you made? Sometimes I wonder if that's true.
Yes, I know I can't trust EVERYONE out there, but I used to be optimistic.
I used to sit quietly in the back and observe to learn the rules of the game and be a respectful observer.
Now I'll sit back wondering how many of you are the same person.
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