Smelly Socks
Just a note… I am not the blog police. And just because I think you are behaving like a dumbass and doing something amazingly stupid doesn’t make it my place to ‘out’ anyone.
I have tons of respect for HelenKay Dimon. Like her or hate her, read her or not – she is a grown up and if she says it she owns up to it.
MDJ could be a bitch from hell you think hates her readers or not – either way she owned up to her words like a big girl.
I often don’t agree with the way Angiew censors herself or the extremes she does it to but again I respect if she can’t say it as herself she doesn’t.
I HATE socks. I understand why authors feel the need to do it but I don’t agree with the action. It is dishonest and one of the quickest ways I will lose respect for you. It is worse to do it and stupidly paint a big fucking star on your forehead and say I. AM. HERE.
The anon’s, mice, BIG NAME AUTHOR, anotherscaredauthor so forth and so on bullshit that plays out on blogs and message boards means jack to me. Because I very rarely believe you ARE a big name author or anyone I should give a shit about. So that opinion of yours that you are so scared to say as you but must get off your chest has little or no value because you don’t exist. So whatever is clever.
I do wonder, am I the only person this annoys? I mean lets face it, this is the internet. I post under redwyne, you might guess that isn’t my name *g*. But I am always redwyne and for good or for ill it is no secret my name is sybil.
Even if I had never shared my name, redwyne identifies me. But you only know what I tell you to be true. So you can make the argument we are all socks puppets used to hide behind to voice our opinions on the internet. Well unless I was posting under Sybil and Redwyne – trying to pass them off as different people. Just think… you could have TWO or me *g*.
See why I think that is such a bad idea?
What about authors? If you write under the name susieq and post under that name, then have an account luvs2read you never link to susieq – is that okay?
Is it only kosher if luvs2read isn’t susieq’s biggest fan evah?
Would you as a reader feel lied to if you formed an online friendship with luvs2read and later found out she was susieq?
No matter what… if you are going to do it… I have ten things you should keep in mind because nothing is worse than a smelly sock.
Oh Sybil, you know I have an opinion on this one, right? 😉
Because I very rarely believe you ARE a big name author or anyone I should give a shit about. So that opinion of yours that you are so scared to say as you but must get off your chest has little or no value because you don’t exist.
Yes. Precisely.
If you have an opinion, then if it’s so all-fired important, then stand the hell up and say, “This is my opinion. I own it. I’ll defend it, and this is how I came to feel this way about it.”
I am so very sick of people, who always remain anonymous, trying to undermine my efforts and the efforts of my colleagues by spreading tales through gossip and anonymous message boards.
Every two weeks I sit in a PUBLIC meeting in a PUBLIC building with a NAME PLATE near my mike, and the entire meeting is on PUBLIC cable broadcasting. And I have to say what I think. Publicly.
A lot of times there’s three people at the meeting, we call for public comment, and there’s no one who wants to speak to an issue.
But when I get home and log on to the local bulletin board, “Parent4” and “Concernen Citizen” and “Horrified voter” are posting: “Can you believe what they voted in? Why didn’t anybody stop them?” “This is all a conspiracy to deny public input. They staffed the latest committee with their best friends.” (Yeah, because we had to beg someone to sign to hell up.) “Just look at the way [Suisan] bats her eyelashes at the Board President before making any vote.” (Eh?)
Really, boys and girls, the authors or readers who feel they have to sock puppet to protect their reputation are cowards. And really, this is ONLY about romance novels. Come on, now.
Got that fire in your belly about how unfair the word is, or how your intelligence isn’t being recognized? Stop trying to police the internet, which really is a Wild West environment, and use that energy for something great.
Join League of Women Voters or The Soroptimists, volunteer at an animal shelter, donate some money to a battered women’s shelter, write a letter to the editor about a local issue, read the newspaper, work the book sale at the library, take a walk. Do something outside of yourself and grow up.
And then be proud of the work you did, and put a name to it. Your name.
I don’t think either way it matters. Nobody online REALLY knows you anyway. Like you said they only know what you say to be true. And I’m only reading you or anyone else because I like your style of writing and what you write about; I could careless if what you call yourself. Or if you have five other blogs with five other names. Who cares? Now if I become a true friend? Yeah, then I think I deserve to know your real name and all that. But that’s not what blogging is all about. Now I blog under the name Jazz, that’s not my real name. My real name is Nicole. Why do I have a blog name? Who knows? Because the other girls I blog with do and I thought it’d be fun to make up my own too….and some of them have personal reasons to do so. But whatever, I don’t care if someone knows my name or not.
I on the other hand do understand author’s reasons for using fake names. And actually I would prefer if authors are blogging about anything off the topic of their books and writing did use a different name. Know why? Cause if I like an author I don’t really want to know their personal views on things. I know it may be shallow of me but if we seriously disagreed on a big issue to me….then it may affect me reading them. Stupid I know but I’m honest enough to admit it would affect me. I mean if it’s just about their shopping or hair or stupid stuff like that fine, but religion, politics….stuff like that? I don’t really want to know where they stand. Soooo there’s my thoughts.
Pathetic soul that I am, somehow I’ve missed something. I’ve been off-line for 5 days, someone please, please, help me.
Anything for you tara 😉
you want an email with links or for me to throw some links here *g*
which ever’s easiest for you, thanks.