Creeps and Voyeurs

Pool Guy lives on the sixth floor. Nice of Musie to tell us. Although it would have been nicer if she'd told us before we installed all that surveillance equipment on the floor below.

I'm kidding of course. We're not that creepy. But I'd like to explore a bit how how creepy we really are. And also to explore a bit about the unwritten blogging codes we've broken here at the metablog.

A good place to start is with someone we haven't heard from for a while. When 6A came back from the Vatican, he decided to see what Evolver had been up to.

Evolver did not react well to our existence:

...on to what creeped me out. What really spooked me was to discover one of my read blogs is basically... well, I'd consider it that anyway - stalked

...I've always imagined that what I write is read by no more than three or four people in a circle of folks who all read each other's blogs. And I've further imagined that what I comment isn't in fact read by anyone (including frequently the blogger themselves.)...

He was particularly affected by our reaction to his comments, in particular that we found him to be "creepy".

...'creepy' is the worst reaction of all...

I suppose I've always feared that ...

And I've always been terrified by that specific variety of bullying that plays to this vulnerability...

I imagine I'm not the only one on the metablog who feels uncomfortable being cast in the position of a "bully" and therefore probably not the only one who was glad to see him feeling better enough to get some shots off at us a couple of days later :

I'm a little past my wounded "inner child" (so to speak) today. Getting called creepy by people involved in an enterprise as spine-chillingly disturbing as that metablog is really not something to take that seriously. I mean these folks photoshop fake magazine covers regarding the blog they until recently secretly lurked in. One post refered (perhaps facetiously) to an 'ethics committee' that their metablog has. Its pretty chilling to think that this is their reined-in behaviour...

I was the first to comment here on Evolver. It was in a comment following one of Coyote's more focussed postings, but not related to it:

...this Evilver guy. He's more obsessed with 5M than we are. Posting vaguely inappropriate comments within minutes of her posting. Focussed on her sexuality when isn't he supposed to be some kind of born again Christian?

[I nicknamed him for the same reason we nicknamed everyone when we were operating in stealth-mode. We didn't want the metablog turning up on vanity Google searches. (Who knew it would take months for Google to notice we exist?) The "evil" part? It was just too easy. ]

Going back through the 5M archives, I don't think my comment on the sexuality focus was fair. My take now on Evolver's comments is they were vague but encouraging remarks. His blog has a big focus on his Christianity. That's something that creeps me out. I have a kneejerk oppositional defiance reaction to evangelism. That E'ver is an active member of Father Joe's congregation doesn't help.

The thing is that any of us who follow Musie's blog are under suspicion for being voyeurs. Yes, we read her to connect with the human condition and all that, but we also want the sex and the gossip, to see just what intimate details she'll reveal. If it's about someone we know, all the better.

And she talks enough about wanting more and better sex and more and better love that any man who reads her blog and makes contact is automatically suspected of being a creepy predator. (Except Bob who comes off like a puppy who wants to play. He's got a deft touch, that lad.)

Evolver left a comment asking about Westfest when 5M said she'd be going to it. He may well have been only interested in learning about this community event and somehow not realized he'd get a faster response typing westfest ottawa into Google. To us, it was a clumsy attempt to make contact with Musie.

When we blog readers are finding each other creepy, a good part of our perception comes from our projection of our own thoughts and feelings onto each other. "If I only wanted to learn about Westfest, I'd just Google it, I'd not try to invite a dialogue with Musie and see if she'd suggest we meet up there."

As long as we follow an intimate details blog of a woman who lives in our city, goes places we go, and knows people we know, we are going to be perceived as creepy voyeurs.

On top of that, with our metablog, we are breaking unwritten Blog-o-sphere rules. Here are the ones I'm aware of:

1. Don't ruin it for the rest of us readers by making the blogger self-conscious and aware of their lack of privacy so that they stop being so frank. (Oddly, we seem to have accomplished the opposite.)
2. Don't spy on the blogger. (In our defence, there's not a lot we can do when she chooses the best downtown cafe as her perpetual hangout. At least she's safe drinking at the F&F. )
3. Don't criticize the bloggers or the commenters. (We've been treating 5M as though we're literary critics or members of a book club and she's a writer or a character in a novel; not like we're fellow members of a big support group.)

I don't think any of us feel guilty about breaking these rules. When you create a public site on the web, it's open to any of us to read it and react to it as we choose. That doesn't give us permission to break any laws or presume there is a relationship between us that doesn't exist, but if bloggers don't want to feel like celebrities under a spotlight, they shouldn't step onto the stage.