Calling all Bloggers:
As we all know, the blog world is a temperamental one. We all blog for our own reasons...some of us blog about our daily happenings ("Funny thing happened to me on the way to work today"), some blog about our opinions ("Why dating in the city sucks"), some blog about love lives or lack there of("So I'm still not getting any...), some blog to share stories and travels ("My feet hurt after walking in Paris all day"), and a lot of us blog for all these reasons combined.
This is what blogging is. It is self-publishing, a WeBlog...we decide what gets written, we decide what we want to say and we can have the whole world listen. This is the beauty of blogging, is it not?
Lately, my blog has been beseiged by an anonymous commentor. This commentor stumbled across my blog one day after I posted a comment on a Beyond Robson post (a Vancouver Community Blog which I am in talks to actually start blogging for). He read a travel post of mine, decided he didn't like what he read and left a malicious comment. I took note of his IP address and left it at that.
Days later, he returned to another post...one that was just about Ross's Birthday and decided that this was a good place to have his opinion heard. If you would like to read his inane comments, you can click here.
As he went on with comments such as "keep trying to make those cuffs and collars match. lol" (wtf does that even mean?), "Boring life, boring blog. I'd be drinking like you too if I had that life." and "If you really want to be a writer, you should give something with more depth? Right now its frivolous and extremely light." (sorry, I'm saving my suicide poems for another blog), he pretended to be other people too...not clever enough to realize that careful deduction and my site meter had him pegged as the same person each time.
While he was annoying because, A) it didn't make too much sense and B) shut up already, what he was saying wasn't getting to me.
Why? Because frankly, I don't care if he doesn't think I'm a good writer or not because, hey who asked him and, well, I must be doing something right for him to keep coming back like this. He was obviously bitter, as Rachel pointed out.
Then he came out with this beauty of a comment, one that wasn't just about me but about all blogger's in general:
"Um, I'm not that anonymous individual or dg that you were talking about.(Um, yes you are and I love you Sitemeter!!!)
My name is Julian. Did I miss a rule that says I must submit all my personal info somewhere? Seriously. Or did you just want attempt a blog for 'friends' to read and comment on because it sure is looking that way?
I just saw that anonymous/dg person made a remark that touched off quite alot of comments back. And I was just trying to see it from all angles. You know, outside the box type of thing. Thats it. Thats all, really.
I am starting to see it from that person's side though now unfortunately, about touching a nerve or whatever. Hmm.
You don't seem like the kind that would fence yourself in?
I certainly hope none of you are this vicious in real life.
And really in a sense aren't we all anonymous and contradicting ourselves by not submitting quite everything.?
I mean thats a discussion within itself, we write for all kinds of reasons, ultimately we would like someone to read blogs we, ourselves have written but as long as its at arms length, then everything should be ok, right? But how true is that, to even ourselves?
We all seem to be contradicting ourselves on blogs, no matter how open and clever we think we are for the world to read.
There are jobs we are protecting ourselves from by not writing about certain things, secrets from partners, etc.
My question is, when does the real writing begin with us ALL?"
What do you think about that? Apparently, as writers and bloggers we have a certain job to do...a job according to him. Funny, when I signed up for a blogger account, I don't recall have to sign a form that said we all had to write about certain things...
Anyway, I decided the best thing to do would be to ignore him. What this guy wanted/wants is attention and I really didn't want to give it to him.
That was until I noticed a hell of a lot of hits coming into my blog...over 140 in a day, 20 the last hour! Holy hell! And all from the Discover Vancouver Forum, a local message board for the city where I found the following forum: "Crappy Vancouver Blogs" and a direct link to my blog.
Unbelievable.
This person has SUCH a grudge against me that they actually went out of their way to start a forum on how much my blog sucks! It's sorta funny but mainly just sad and a wee bit creepy.
Especially since the people who were coming to my blog were reading it for a few minutes and leaving and not going back to the Vancouver Forum, or not even reading my blog at all...and yet, suddenly I get all these negative comments. ...hmmm. Strange how people who weren't even reading my blog were leaving these comments that all sound a bit...familiar.
My theory is that yes, I'm sure some people have a problem with my blog but this one PYSCHO is probably leaving most of them.
Why? Because no one on my blog would ever agree with him, but he can start his own blog of such and then make it seems like lots of people really DO agree with him.
Sad, scary and unnerving...and yet I was still willing to ignore it.
Until he started stealing pics off of my blog and posting them up there for people to make fun of.
That's going too far.
You can make hateful comments about my blog from your online soapbox (while remaining deliciously anonymous) but seriously, when you bring my picture in to it, that's getting extremely scary.
I feel like Hilary Duff, Madonna or Jodie Foster...I just hope this guy isn't going to track me down and then go and shoot a President for me (although, maybe I wouldn't be that gutted about Bush...kidding ;)
I know that when you aren't anonymous that there can be some problems associated with it. Yes, people might know who you are and yes not everyone is going to like you...such is life.
But I never in a million years, thought that someone I don't know would detest me and my blog so much that they would go out of their way to try and make a point...and the thing is, I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE POINT IS!
There's not much I can do, except that Vancouver Forum will take that down soon because making fun of someone in the city just for spite isn't exactly something that's discussion worthy.
It's just plain sad.
The thing I don't understand though is, why me?
My blog isn't controversial (not too much anyway). I have lots of readers, everyone (ha, except one) seems to enjoy it and I get nothing but postitive feedback.
I find it amazing that little ol' me has the power to infuriate someone so much that they have made it their life's mission to try and bring me down.
Well, you can post my picture up all you like baby, because perhaps a little fame and notoriety is all I need to cement myself in the blogging world.
So, what do all of you think? Am I alone on this? I know Steph got recognized at the airport and she's not even anonymous! Anyone else had to deal with jealous psychos because of their blog?
And is this the kind of things all Bloggers should potentially prepare for?
(and by the way, you can read my stalker's pointless and city-wide post HERE.)
