August 20, 2006

Bloggy Question 19 — A Blogging Life of Fiction

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 6:46 pm

What Do I Owe You?

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week, I offer this Blogging Question. This event really happened.

A blogger who wrote a personal blog about his life as a gas station attendant, who worked at a station across the road from a university in Tennessee or Kentucky, decided to stop blogging. He was a blogger with a following — 20 or 30 comments per post wasn’t unusual.

This blogger and his fans were a community. They shared inside jokes, histories, and details about their families. Some readers had planned to drive down to see him.

In the last post when he signed off, the blogger stated quite simply that everything he had said about his life was fiction. He was not a gas station attendant. He was a student at said university.

The blogger claimed his right to tell the extended blogging story in the tradition of fiction writers such as Samuel Clemens. What’s your response to this blogging fiction?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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57 Comments to “Bloggy Question 19 — A Blogging Life of Fiction”

  1. August 20th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
    Carol said

    He should have indicated some place on his blog that he was writing fiction.

  2. August 20th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Carol.
    Welcome.

    He didn’t think that he needed to. The discussion went on for days about it.

    I agree with you. I think it was not very nice what he did.

  3. August 20th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
    Rico said

    Hi Liz, very interesting question. Do you have a link to this blog, or a story about it? :)

    I don’t agree with the blogger’s actions, and in fact find them really wrong. If I was one of his readers, I’d feel violated. It’s different when people suspend their disbelief for fiction, or when they take something as true. How we invest time, interest, and emotion into an imaginary tale is different than how we do so for truth.

    Thus, I can imagine some readers feeling like fools. Their concern for what seemed to be a genuine narrative turned out to be a belief in something not real. There’s nothing wrong in believing fantasy; I love immersing myself in literary universes. But if I believed that an account was true to life, and discovered it wasn’t after all, I’d feel like the dumbest person in the world.

    And that’s why this blogger’s actions were wrong. Intentionally or not, he’s made at least some of his readers more cynical. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The very fact he made someone more distrustful about other people’s intentions is what I don’t like.

    Carol is right. He should’ve indicated somewhere that it was fiction; no way can he excuse himself by invoking artistic license.

    Something like that. :)

  4. August 20th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
    Rico said

    PS: Sorry for the long post, it’s just that I feel strongly about what the blogger did. :(

  5. August 20th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Rico,
    You have no need to apologize for a long comment. You’re welcome to express your feeling.

    I felt the same way when it happened and I was NOT a reader of the blog. Someone just emailed me about it. She was a reader and wanted my opinion.

    I don’t have the link any longer. It was months ago, probably last December. It’s best left dead.

  6. August 20th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
    Rico said

    Rats, I honestly would’ve wanted to give him a piece of my mind. But as usual, right you are Liz, it’s best to forget this sordid blogging affair. :)

  7. August 20th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
    ME Strauss said

    It was strange to me how many of his readers defended him.

  8. August 20th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
    Rico said

    I guess it was readers to support this indefensible action, instead of accepting they were duped. Like Hitler said: “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a great lie than to a small one.” So great was the lie, that it has many believers. *sigh*

  9. August 20th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
    ME Strauss said

    He really thought it was the same as writing fiction. That it didn’t matter that in fiction the audience knows.

  10. August 20th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
    Yvonne said

    I agree with Rico - some fibs on blogs are OK (not that I encourage them!), but taking on a pseudonym and deliberately fooling your readers into thinking you live a completely different life is unacceptable. It’s abuse of trust, and that’s no different online than it is in real life.

  11. August 20th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
    ME Strauss said

    That’s how I saw it. Major betrayal.

  12. August 20th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
    Yvonne said

    And touching upon what Rico said again, it does give the rest of us honest bloggers a bad name, and makes our readers just a little bit more cynical and distrusting.

  13. August 20th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Yes, Yvonne. You and Rico are right. You have no reason to believe anything I say. He doesn’t make it easier; does he?

  14. August 20th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
    Brian Clark said

    I appraoched this very thought question two days ago without knowing this story:

    http://www.copyblogger.com/why-plato-would-have-blown-it-as-a-blogger/

  15. August 20th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Brian,
    It’s getting really fun how you and I are traveling the same roads together. :)

  16. August 20th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
    Brian Clark said

    It’s a trip. And did you see the guy who made the Mark Twain reference in the comments to my post? That’s what really weirded me out when I saw the justification offered by the university student.

  17. August 20th, 2006 at 11:10 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Yeah, I was just reading that reference, right before you came back here. We seem to be having these weird synchronicities.

  18. August 20th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
    Rico said

    Sorry to insert myself between to greats, but I was wondering which post you guys were talking about? :) I checked out the Plato post of Brian, but I can’t seem to find the comment he was referring to…

  19. August 20th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Rico,
    It’s a quick reference to “Twain” in comment 3.

  20. August 20th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
    Rico said

    Ahh, thanks. Missed it entirely. :)

  21. August 20th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Easy enough to see why you might. :)

  22. August 20th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
    RisingSunofNihon said

    I personally have no problem with what the blogger did. I mean, he was just recounting fictional stories about a fictional life, right? People weren’t paying to read these “real” anecdotes (a la James Frey/A Million Little Pieces) nor was the kid selling himself as an expert on something (e.g. posting stock market advice or whatever). So… no, I don’t feel he “owes” his readers anything. It’s the Internet. Anyone can be anything they want.

  23. August 21st, 2006 at 12:48 am
    ME Strauss said

    I can’t agree with you RisingSunofNihon. If a person sets himself up as telling his person story and allows others to tell their own a trade is made. The expectation is that the trade is made on both parts in good faith. If what he is telling is fiction he should say so. If he doesn’t have confidence in his ability to hold an audience with his fiction, he shouldn’t be writing. He was a charlatan. He stole their belief.

  24. August 21st, 2006 at 1:08 am
    Mommy off the Record said

    I would have felt betrayed if I were one of his readers.

  25. August 21st, 2006 at 1:17 am
    Mark said

    On the internet, no-one knows you’re a student. ;-)

  26. August 21st, 2006 at 3:42 am
    Hotelguru said

    Definitely a violation of trust - if you expect to build a relationship with people trust is a crucial element. Agree that a clear indication that the work was fiction would have helped avoid this controversy.

  27. August 21st, 2006 at 5:15 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Mommy off the Record
    Welcome,
    I would have felt betrayed right along with you. That’s probably because had I known it was fiction I would have read and enjoyed anyway, but the many took choice away from me.

    In the days after when he talked about it, he said it was a test to see whether he could write life-life characters that were believable. That means that he made “me” (in this case his audience) into his test subjects without their permission. Any way that I look at it, it’s a trick at their expense.

  28. August 21st, 2006 at 5:17 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Mark,
    Welcome back. I’m not sure what you mean. Can you elaborate?

  29. August 21st, 2006 at 5:33 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Hotelguru,
    I would have “forgiven” (whatever word I mean) the situation had the young man said that he started out thinking one way and gotten over his head. I can see how one might come into the situation thinking an experiment is an okay thing. However, once people start opening up to you over the course of several months with personal stuff about them. Then you’re playing with feelings and that’s just not nice.

    Play with my feeling or my friends’ feelings and act like that’s okay, and I don’t like you has a member of the human species. You’re not young, you’re missing a certain kind of humanity that allows you to see things from other folks point of view.

    This young might be able to draw life-like characters, but he cannot understand how a large part of the real world of people actually thinks and feels. Justifying his act doesn’t mean it didn’t harm anyone.

  30. August 21st, 2006 at 6:02 am
    Mark said

    Hi Liz,

    Sorry, it’s my childish sense of humour. The story reminded me of a classic New Yorker cartoon - of a dog sitting at the family computer and saying to another dog (or maybe a cat) “On the internet, no-one knows you’re a dog”.

    To answer the serious question - I don’t think the deception was justified. Sometimes it’s important to protect a blogger’s identify (e.g. EA Spouse or Baghdad Burning http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com) and sometimes it’s fun to create a character for the blog (E.g. Manolo’s Shoe Blog) but in those cases it’s clear to the audience what’s happening. One of the attractions of blogs to many people is the idea of honest communication, and a personal relationship, not to mention the sense of community that can build around a popular blog. So I think the deception was ethically wrong.

    But more than that, I’ve got an aesthetic objection to it - there was nothing particularly clever or interesting about the deception. It’s not that difficult to hide behind a blog platform and claim to be something you’re not, and it doesn’t sound like either the writer or his audience really learned anything from the ‘unmasking’. I’ve never heard of Samuel Clemens but I’m willing to bet his work was a whole lot more interesting than that.

  31. August 21st, 2006 at 6:12 am
    ME Strauss said

    Ah Yes, Mark,
    Of course, “on the internet no one knows you’re a dog.” (Makes me want tie to that other joke and rewrite it as *on the internet, no one knows you are God.* :) ) I just didn’t make the connection out of context either.

    You’ve expressed the problem so eloquently. You choice of words ethically wrong and nothing particularly clever

    You know Samuel Clemens as Mark Twain. We use both names over here.

  32. August 21st, 2006 at 6:31 am
    Mark McGuinness said

    Ah, yes in that case I do know Mr Clemens! And I think I would have won the bet!

  33. August 21st, 2006 at 6:32 am
    ME Strauss said

    Yes, Indeed, Mark you would have won the bet hands down. Mr. Twain was more interesting when he was just watiching. :)

  34. August 21st, 2006 at 8:37 am
    mike dunn said

    hi liz - if this deception had been pulled by a company, such as when a company starts a blog anonymously to create buzz/hype around their products - we always feel betrayed and the blogosphere reacts in a very negative way, this should be the same for an individual - the value is in transparency…

    now any potential employer of this student will be able to trackback and see their unethical use of a public forum - won’t make him very marketable…

    there are plenty of creative ways to use fiction on the web - cory doctorow is probably the best example…

    btw: i’ve launched a new blog w/ more personal posts so i have linked to that instead of my normal nomadic audio site - speaking of transparency ;)

  35. August 21st, 2006 at 8:59 am
    MamaDuck said

    Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea, but if he was going to do it, he should never have given himself away - as in, he should never let people visit him or revealed his true identity. He had to know that when he was discovered, it would all be over.

    I’d never do it, plus, who needs to when you have a real-life Lil’ Duck around to blog about (and yes, he’s real altho his name isn’t really Lil’ Duck of course, you can come visit him anytime ;)).

  36. August 21st, 2006 at 9:04 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Mike,
    You bring up a good point, which is that the young man has this out there for folks to see in the future — unless, of course, he deletes the entire blog which he may well have done I don’t know.

    On the other note, did you want me to change your SOB link to match your new URL?

  37. August 21st, 2006 at 9:08 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi MamaDuck,
    First of all, thanks for the invitation. What makes me think there might be babysitting involved???? :) :)

    I agree. It’s his total disregard of his readers that is an affront to me. As if he shouldn’t need to or want to give a care and that they should bend to the “glory” of the art. I find that arrogant and “obnoxious.” I also think any writer to whom he compares himself is likely not to agree. Unfortately he only chose dead writers.

  38. August 21st, 2006 at 9:45 am
    Ram said

    Hey Liz,
    Yes It was not at all good on his part to keep his readers in such a loop for so long. If it was all a work of fiction then he should have mentioned just like any other book.
    But then again aren’t we responsible for our own doing. If we trusted that guy and made some attachments then after this experience we should learn something.

    Ram

  39. August 21st, 2006 at 9:51 am
    ME Strauss said

    Welcome, Ram. No question that we should learn from this. My sadness that he probably did not. Commenter #22 seems to feel similar to the way the blogger in question did.

    Do I just assume then that all personal sites of interest are total fiction? Do I avoid them entirely? Do I trust other personal blogger and consider him a fluke?

    I had a friend falsify her identity on my writing site. She commented as a stranger. How is this different?

  40. August 21st, 2006 at 11:07 am
    katiebird said

    Of course being lied to is a risk that we take when we hang out on blogs and forums. But, I tend to assume that Liz is who she claims to be. And I assume that she in turn assumes that I am the person I claim to be.

    We could both be lying. But, not only would that dimish the value of our blogs, it would also make our jobs much harder (keeping track of lies is too complicated for me). And it seems to me the guy who ran that blog we’re talking about must have realized that.

    If he really was practicing the art of fiction, there wouldn’t have been any reason to close his blog. As an artist, sort of a writing-actor, he could have gone on for years (like the Truman Show).

    But, it sounds like the lying finally got to him and he couldn’t keep it up.

  41. August 21st, 2006 at 11:21 am
    Big Roy said

    This is a tough one.

    It’s not something I would have done but I’m having a hard time really feeling like any harm was done here. This may actually point to a bigger problem in society and the internet. Some people are to quick to believe what they see or read on the internet. Some are to quick to invest them self emotionally into a blog, forum, on-line game, and friends they meet on-line. Personally I am invested emotionally with two people, my wife and daughter. Sure I have friends, family, associates, people I respect, but no one who could do real harm to me if I was betrayed by them somehow.

    Maybe I am being cynical. Many have been on the internet much longer then I have. I got my first computer in 1996 and like many I was on AOL dial-up. I learned quickly no-one (or very few) are who they seem.(it’s not so bad now) I have also been in a job my whole life where I have seen many important or respected people do bad things. So I guess I’m saying if people were hurt by this stunt I think it’s them who have to learn something not the blogger.

  42. August 21st, 2006 at 11:22 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Katie,
    Yeah, we could both be lying, but your point is well taken that it would be a loss to both of our blogs and more work at that.

    Every time I write one of these response I just think of the women at the university that date him.

  43. August 21st, 2006 at 11:36 am
    ME Strauss said

    Big Roy,
    Would you feel the same, if you found out I was I guy?

  44. August 21st, 2006 at 11:37 am
    katiebird said

    Oh, the women he dates! I didn’t think about the people in his “real life” — I wonder how often he’s pulled ‘harmless’ scams in other aspects of his life? And you bring up a good point. We don’t have to go on the Internet to be fooled. It can happen anywhere.

    I guess the best thing to do is read and listen carefully — especially to new people.

  45. August 21st, 2006 at 11:39 am
    ME Strauss said

    Yeah, Katie,
    I keep thinking that fiction might be way of life for this guy. If he doesn’t consider other people’s response to his actions. Why would he care?

  46. August 21st, 2006 at 11:40 am
    Rico said

    “Would you feel the same, if you found out I was I guy?”

    *Commits suicide*

    Wow, this conversation has really grown since I last left it. :-o

  47. August 21st, 2006 at 11:43 am
    ME Strauss said

    No need to, Rico. That’s really my picture. Several people have actually met me. :)

  48. August 21st, 2006 at 11:51 am
    Rico said

    Or have they? *suspicious expression* Haha, just kidding. :) But I’ve said it in the beginning of this group of comments, and I’ll say it again: it’s evil because he made some of his victims more distrustful of the world. :(

  49. August 21st, 2006 at 11:55 am
    ME Strauss said

    After I had the experience of a person who I trusted for years come to my blog and pretend to be someone who didn’t know me. I can only agree with you 100%. It was a betrayal of trust.

  50. August 21st, 2006 at 12:43 pm
    Big Roy said

    Damn Liz, if I found out you were a guy my current fantasies all be very confusing.

  51. August 21st, 2006 at 12:47 pm
    ME Strauss said

    So, see, there is a trust thing between blogger and reader that requires the knowledge of fiction being revealed. :)

  52. August 21st, 2006 at 12:58 pm
    Big Roy said

    I’m not saying it was right.

    The abridged version of what I tried to say is, be smarter on the internet.

    Now I have to go back to my fantasy. It starts with an attractive blonde sitting at a desk wearing a comfortable sweater…

  53. August 21st, 2006 at 1:40 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Roy,
    I’m not going there. :)

  54. August 22nd, 2006 at 10:42 am
    Tammy said

    This is a subject that is very personal for me. I am not naive - I realize anyone can BE just about anyone on the internet. It is a moral issue and tells something about the character of a person. I have a pet peeve about the use of smoke and mirrors for any type of “gain” including money.

    If he wanted to create a fictional blog that is his right, to interact as the character he has created that is not right because it is deceiving. To do it to write a book? Well… that is moving into another arena.

    My first thought was the Gary Cooper movie “Meet John Doe” …

    Tammy

  55. August 22nd, 2006 at 10:54 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Tammy,
    I agree there is a moral issue here that speaks to character or should I say, lack thereof.

    When people read fiction they know it is fiction, look what happened when they didn’t even Oprah lost credibility.

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