Shelly has a couple of entries over on Occasional Blog
about recent controversies over AOL Journalers allegedly deceiving each
other about who they are and the experiences they've had, and other
journalers getting all het up about it. Right off the bat, let me make
it clear that I have no opinion on the specific controversies. I have
no idea which journals and people were involved, and what did or did
not really happen, and who did or did not criticize anyone else. I
don't even feel it's my responsibility to try to find out about any of
these things. I'd make a pretty good juror, I think, because unless I
have a specific responsibility to form an opinion over a specific case,
I usually don't. I don't know or care, for example, what Kobe Bryant
did or did not do with that woman.
That said, when it comes to deliberate deception on a blog, I'm "agin
it." It upsets people, and may be evidence (if the blogger really is doing it) that he or
she has some personality, emotional or social problem. (Or not.) A few such people may be sufficiently
mentally ill to be mildly dangerous (or at least a nuisance) to others
who unwisely get involved. Whether this is true of any one of the many
thousands of AOL Journalers is something I can't begin to answer on a
case by case basis (nor should I), but the odds are good that it's true
of somebody somewhere.
In my limited experience, journalers who admit or proclaim their mental
illness tend to be nice, interesting, engaging, mostly functional
people. This is also true of my two mentally ill friends. That's very
different, however, from postings by people who set out to deceive. I
have been on the receiving end of mild harassment by a stalker who long
ago used to frequently post on Quantum Leap message boards
under false identities. This person's attentions were scary enough with
respect to another of her perceived enemies that the FBI got involved
at one point. I hesitated to mention her existence here, even this vaguely,
lest I set her off again.
So what should anybody do about blogs they know or suspect to be a
cruel lie? Probably nothing. It is not the responsibility of the AOL-J
community to judge each other's veracity or mental health. If somebody
posts that she is going to jump off a bridge tomorrow, a person who
knows where she lives should probably check on her. But that's the
point: personal contact is required to really know what's going on.
That's the responsibility of family, friends, employers, religious
communities, social service agencies, medical people or, if the person
has none of the above, anyone else who
notices that someone in a bad way. The
responsibility of the journaler is to exercise a reasonable amount of
healthy skepticism, avoid jumping to unwarranted conclusions, and, if
the journaler's claims seem dubious, to decide whether to read the
journal any more.
AOL Journals are, of course, welcome to have and even express opinions.
That's what blogging is about. I myself have the opinion that Shelly is
a librarian who lives in or near NYC, expresses herself well and
sometimes bluntly, and has spent the past couple of years working
intermittently on a novel about Mars. (I think I have pretty good
evidence for all this, but I don't really know that the
biographical details are true.) Attacking each other, especially based
on raw emotion and without evidence, is probably a Bad Thing.
Shelly, I know (or think I know), can take care of herself. But a
lot of people are more thin-skinned. I was mildly upset for half
an hour today because some commenter criticized my shoes. (Sorry, kid:
I'm not going to limp around in significant pain for the rest of my
life for the sake of shoe fashion!) It's therefore a good idea for
people to try to be a little less judgmental and a little more
tolerant. If someone is telling the truth, he or she does not deserve
to be accused of lying. If the person is lying, there's a small chance
that the accuser is making an enemy of someone who just might do
something about it.
Karen
YouTube and Other Obsessions
-
Okay, I'm not really obsessed with YouTube. I'm obsessed with taking photos
and making videos. It's a lot of fun, but there are a few aspects of it
that ...
5 years ago
2 comments:
I have found that mentally ill people are usually extremely interesting! Ha! (I am one...lol) I have tried to step back from AOL Jnls due to the fact that I found I was getting my cyber space feelings hurt and that was just crazy! I have been criticized too on various subjects! If people want to misrepresent themselves, as has happen on many occassions here, it is so easy to do!!! Like I said, I just try to step back and tell myself the REAL world is outside my door, not inside this machine.
You know I saw that shoe comment and my first thuoght was that it was a complete waste of time. First, they obviously just looked at the pictures without reading your explanation, and second they left an unhelpful, pointless comment. Don't people have better things to do? I knew people like that back in the Prodigy days, and I still don't get it. Anyway, reflects more on them than on your shoes, especially since you have a perfectly good reason for not being completely superficial about style issues!
My coworkers have bone spurs too, by the way.
Sara
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