Off Topic: Your Opinion Wanted About Blogging Ethics December 13, 2005
Posted by fredcharles in Uncategorized.trackback
This post is a bit off topic but it is something that I would love to hear your opinions on considering that most of you who read this site are bloggers.
I met a friend in the writing chat rooms on AOL about 2 years ago. Both of us were working on novels and shared a common interest in writing. I knew from back then that she was someone trapped in a loveless marriage with kids. I have long since left AOL but we talk on and off once and I while through email although, we have lost touch over the last few months.
During one of our last conversations she started telling me about her new blog. She said that writing a blog was a great way to get your writing noticed and build up a following. I never really looked into blogging at that point but she piqued my interest into checking it out.
My understanding of blogs at that point was that people used them for online journals. When I asked her about the content of her blog, I was a bit surprised by her answer. She told me that she invented a fake occurrence in her life and was basing the blog on that incident. She blogs as a person who had a life changing event but that event is made up. I asked her how this would help her get a book deal and get her writing noticed and she said that she hoped that a publisher would be interested in her story. My reply was, “Won’t people be annoyed when they find out the truth?” I didn’t get an answer to that question. She just assured me that she knew what she was doing and that I just didn’t understand the blogsphere, which I did not.
I check her blog once and I while and I am amazed at the amount of readers that she has. People are very interested in her story and day to day goings on. She gets more comments a day than most people do in a month.
The last time we spoke, I asked her how her blog was going and she said that it was going great. I asked her again about the premise and she said, “That it allows her some happiness in her otherwise dull life.”
Okay, now I can appreciate that but I still think that it’s a little wrong to take people’s goodwill and be less than honest with them. From what I can gather, about 70% of the blog is her real life but the other 30% is fake. The thing is, the fake part is what separates her blog from any other daily journal.
I don’t know why I am bothered by this but I have just been thinking about it a lot. I am not bothered by it in an angry way, it’s more that I really don’t understand. I would never, ever, ever think about blowing her cover so please do not ask me for a link to her blog. She really is really kind person and she is in a tough personal situation and I would never destroy this for her, even if I think it’s all a bit dubious. I just posted this because I wanted the opinion of some other bloggers out there.
That’s all.
Isn’t that what a lot of fiction writing is? The writer naturally uses reality as an inspiration, but adds “artistic license” to the dull parts.
Unless she is padding her bank account based on a lie, I would take it as just an exercise in fiction.
In getting to know people on the internet, I tend to have a skeptical view on any personal revelations. Not because I don’t think people are trustworthy, but because of the nature of the internet, itself. It lends perfectly to imaging yourself in another world or situation…the perfect escape from reality, if that’s what you want.
I try to read blogs the way you’re supposed to read poems and fiction. The speaker is not neccesarily the character. I’m sure a lot of blogs are about real life, certainly my blog are things that happened to me with a little embellishment (unless otherwise mentioned), but there is only so much you can say about yourself on a blog. Certainly a few posts can’t portray yourself exactly, or tell everything about you. Even when none of it is fake, something is always missing.
When you really get down to it though isn’t it all the same story? Like QB said before me, reading a blog is like reading fiction with a little more life than drama. Sure, okay, maybe it didn’t happen exactly the way it reads, but it’s still essentially about a person going through those little conflicts – and that is what makes books interesting…and blogs.
However, it is a murky dilemma that is worth chewing over.
Sorry, you asked for two cents, I gave twenty-five.
Katy – I am always interested in hearing people’s 25 cents, lol. I appreciate getting both of your perspectives on this. I was really just interested in hearing what other bloggers thought of this practice. I have a very limited view of blogging. I am certainly not condemning her by any means. Thanks for taking the time to post! I am beginning to see what she is doing as almost some sort of direct fiction or even interactive.
I guess it depends on what your blog is about. If she intends to use it to get herself a book deal then I suppose she should be honest.
I dont know, I dont even see how having a blog is going to help you achieve anything. It’s like scrap booking. 1000′s of people do it so it doesn’t exactly set you apart from the crowd. Anyone can have a blog, even me. So honesty probably isn’t that important. Of course its wrong to prey on people’s sympathy. I think that says more about her, than it does about her writing.
I’m fairly new to the blog world, but I caught on right away that there are some major threads of fiction out there parading as reality — and readers really love it. It’s entertaining. There are one or two that I tune into, and I’m pretty sure they are concocted somewhat or totally. But the stories are kind of interesting, and the comments s/he gets are intriquing. It comes with the territory of the internet – believe nothing to be true unless you can prove it.
I just encountered this very situation yesterday, only in a much more serious way. I was contacted by Rev. Gisher over at Less Idiots who informed me of a young guy who he thought might be in trouble (suicide). He had a few people (including me) very worried about this guy. He posted saying that he was going to kill himself. Then we didn’t see a post for a couple of days. Yesterday there was a post made by “his girlfriend” informing people that he had been found dead! I actually cried when I read the post. This was after several attempts by people to help, IE – leaving help #s on his site, emailing him etc… FINALLY, Rev gets an email FROM THE GUY!!! He’s fine, I guess he had a rush of conscience. He was trying to be “creative” and wanted to create an interesting story and “go out” with a bang!! I didn’t know the guy or anything, but after I thought he had died, I started reading his blog and I felt so sad for him… Naturally I felt like an idiot afterwards!
There are LOTS of cases on the internet where people are being people they’re not, lying about their lives, or just pretending to be someone totally different. I guess the anonyminity (sp?) of the internet provides an ideal platform for this type of behaviour.
Personally, it’s not my style whatsoever. I’m what you see is what you get. I guess I sometimes have my rose coloured glasses on when I expect the same of others.
I am currently reading a blog that I know is a lie.
Yes, she (why does it have to be a she?) is involved in a loveless and abusive marriage. She has been gathering male bloggers left and right.
But I have this sickening feeling that these are all lies. I continue to read and “ride the lie”. I see it more as a fiction book in process than anything else.
One more tip: NEVER get emotionally involved with these people. You’ll just be disappointed.
I agree with Lingo Slinger (great handle, btw), it depends on the situation. For obvious reasons, I don’t want people to know who I am. The idea of my professors, my friends, or my family (especially my family!) reading my blog scares the crap out of me. so I change a lot of the details of my stories so as not to leave a trail. But i have sort of a thematic blog. I don’t think people are reading it for the “characters.” Would it matter if Drunk Girl was really a philosophy major? Or my stories about M. were sometimes about P. or Q.? I tend to think that the answer is no.
But then again, there was a big uproar when Article Three Groupie turned about to be a man. I don’t know if you guys read about this in the New Yorker, but apparently some lawyer had a pretty popular law blog (underneath their robes) and he posed as a female writer. As far as I can tell the blog wasn’t personal, it was about legal cases and judges and whatnot. Anyway, he came out as the author in a new yorker article and I guess some people were upset to learn that the author was a guy…
So, I don’t really know what to make of your friend’s blog.
I wonder, though, are you upset by your friends dishonesty not because it is dishonest to her readers but because it is some sense unfair to other bloggers? That she is in some sense getting undeserved credit? I don’t say this to be mean. I’m just curious. I get the impression that most out and out fiction blogs get ignored. Do you feel like she’s taking away reader’s attention from “honest players”? Would it matter to you if she didn’t allow comments on her blog? Would that make it seem more fair?
I think it’s fine, so long that she isn’t taking advantage of anyone.
The great thing about blogging is that its purpose can be interpreted entirely different from one blogger to the other, so the variety is always interesting.
Thanks to everyone for replying to this post. I wanted opinions and I got them!
I guess because both of my blogs both of my blogs really aren’t about me but about my interests, I had a hard time trying to figure out why someone would create a blog and pretend to be something that they are not. I guess to each his/her own.
On the other hand, if I was reading a blog, say, by a person who said that they were dying or something like that, I might be a bit annoyed to find out that it was all a work of fiction. This is not the subject of my friends blog, just an example.
Jaq – To answer your line of questions (which I, of course expected from you, lol). I am not upset by my friend’s blog by any means. She is very sensitive and I know that my inquiries into her motives would really upset her which is why I posed the questions to you fine folks. I would not even go as far to say that we are really friends. I am more friendly with you blogsphere folks at the moment than I am with her.
I guess what concerns me the most is the inevitable backlash she will endure if anyone finds out about that her blog is less than truthful. It seems that she is building a false reality for herself. But I guess the whole thing is her own making.
Thanks again everyone for posting such well thought out comments! I hope that Santa brings all of you something super, mega, ultra cool!!!
If I’m going to be reading a work of fiction, I’d like to at least know… :/
HUH… my comment didn’t show up. Oh well… nevermind
I think it’s important to think about what truth really is.She may not be using the literal truth but using a few add on situations or ideas to amplify the core of her story. A story that is the truth as experienced by her. Facts are not what tell us the truth, integrity does. If I write a story about a girl who is orphaned that could be the truth despite the fact that both my parents are alive. I would never feel cheated by a blogger that way, if it is written with intergrity and read with sensitivity we arre giving each other something truthfull…
That’s a tough point in my opinion, because the line between what’s acceptable and what’s not is pretty easy to cross. I don’t mind people embellishing some events in their lives a little, for the sake of the posts being funny and more enjoyable to read (I’ve done that at times as well, after all); what I mind is to read someone posing as, say, a rape victim, only to come out in the open later on and admit it was all a lie. I suppose I draw my line where the stories actually become “insulting” for those who’ve really been in the situation itself.
(Not to say that no author is allowed to write about, say, a character suffering from leukemia or something, but posing as one on a blog, gathering people’s compassion for it, would feel like a betrayal to me. This is a personal feeling here, though, not word of law. I know other people have different standards than mine on this.)
I’ll agree on the backlash part. Sure, it can help in making her famous when/if it’s revealed, but I doubt it’s the kind of fame that is really pleasant to get. Personnally, I wouldn’t want it. If I’m to become famous, then I want it to be about me, not about a fictional personality I’ve given to myself. The mask is too hard to carry on one’s face after a while.
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