797 Point Taken.

by

In anonymity our true natures are made manifest.

What people do when they think they aren’t being watched can be truly staggering.  I think most everyone goes through that period of being insane when they first get the Internet and think that no one can track them.  I’m not saying that posting racy fanfic is insane by any means, but you get the idea.  A mask, or at least the perception of one, allows the hidden self to run rampant and everyone has one.  The person who protests loudest that they don’t is without doubt the one with the most to hide.  Like a republican senator crusading against gay rights getting blown by a dude in a public restroom.

Some sites pander to this desire for anonymity, like the various incarnations of fandom secrets or 4chan.

The other side of that is doing insane things BECAUSE we are being watched.  Everyone goes through that on the net too.  For me it was with Livejournal.  It took some time, but eventually I grew out of it, thankfully.  Now I try to keep my public displays of insanity to a minimum.  I’m only human though, so sometimes it gets out, or I get outed.  At those times it’s generally best to own it and move on.

My experiences with both sides of this phenomenon have made me much more tolerant that I once was.   Everyone has secrets.  When exposed very few of those secrets deserve the scorn people heap on them.

18 Comments

We have video cameras at work. I’m on a sort of probation thing and they are supposedly watching my tapes from whenever I have a shift by myself. It’s annoying and insulting. The thing is, they don’t watch the tapes. They even told me that the vcr is so shitty that they can’t see anything above the knee except every 5 minutes of tape (which, since it’s on fast forward, is like every half hour) but you never know what they’ll catch so you have to stay sharp about it. It’s when you’re bored out of your mind that it really grates on you especially when you know they allow others to do things that you don’t get to get away with. So, yeah. I’ve been working in a fishbowl and it’s been driving me crazy. The worse thing is that when you get used to “actually doing your job” you start to think it’s not so bad and that you don’t mind doing it this way all day every day. Then you realize you’re being brainwashed and the whole thing has to start all over again. This would be so much simpler if I enjoyed my job…

Hate to say it, but it is somewhat a different story at work. Admittedly, some places the ‘need’ is more obvious (banks, pharmacies, etc…) where someone could royally screw over a lot of people or cause someone to get hurt or killed. I can say from experience in convenience store work I’ve caught people activating hundreds of dollars of gift cards and then not paying for them (and slipping them to someone else, taking them home themselves, and in one case double dipping by taking the money, including activation fees, and pocketing that on op of activating a couple cards for themselves in the process).

And I’m not saying that cameras at work are right. I admit as often as not someone slipped past the cameras and did whatever out of sight, and lots of people don’t get caught either, but any place where someone can perform a misdeed (by misdeed I mean an intentional act), it can end up costing more than just the company money. It can cost a lot of people their jobs. Look at Enron for an example (admittedly in the upper echelons, but do you think they would have hesitated to fire an entire office if too many people were up to costing them money??)

So, at work at least, it isn’t so much brainwashing. You never have to like the cameras being there, but it helps to understand that there is cause for them. It would be another story if internal theft (used here as a broader term meaning any misdeed that results in a financial loss to the company, which includes anything covered by insurance [raises premiums, can result in bad publicity, etc…]) was less common. And keep in mind what I was told when I confronted the guy who had stolen the cards AND pocketed the money by asking him why he did it: He thought he could get away with it.

I’m just annoyed because we were told we could read at work– that they “don’t mind” and I get in trouble for it while some of the other girls bring a kindle to work and read it. The video stuff has nothing to do with theft or anything even remotely like it. They just want to make sure that, specifically, I am doing things when there are no customers. It’s a reasonable request except that they don’t hold others to the same standard and blatantly acknowledge that they don’t even going so far as to bring a damned Yahtzee game to work and store it at the front counter.

Or the Democrat who acts like making money (legitimately) is a crime and makes all kinds of seedy deals on the side…

I don’t trust myself with the possibility of anonymity. I can do some pretty crazy things when people know who I am, so the idea of what I might do when no-one knows who I am genuinely scares me. That’s why, when I first got the internet and signed up for Tokyopop.com (Back when it was still a good site) I entered my real name and age and stuff. Even my current username is my initials (And links to a site with my real name anyway).

That’s also why I don’t drink. Sheer fear of what I could do.

When on the internet, I act the same way I do in real life, although I am a bit less shy. I think part of it is that I feel I have a reputation to keep even on the internet (I always go by “The One Guy” when I don’t use my actual name, after all), but part of it is because I’m actually very happy with who I am, so why would I want to act differently?

There is this site called PostSecret.com

It started out as a community project which turned world wide. There are now 5 printed books and the site is (as it always was) updated every sunday with new secrets.

People anonymously send in their secret on a postcard. Things they would and have never admitted or said to anyone. It’s a great example of what you talked about just now.

Sometimes, when reading other’s secrets, you find that they are sad or funny or rather stupid and sometimes, you find that they’re your own, no matter who sent or wrote it.

I am so glad Brooksie has yet to reveal herself. If she hadn’t been able to restrain herself, she’d probably have interrupted before the topic of magic nookie and this conversation would have been, like the life of Marie Antoinette, cut tragically short.

At least, I’m assuming that Brooksie is practicing not being seen. In close proximity. From what I’ve been able to read from her personality and previous dealings, it’s what I conclude she’d be doing at this point.

A part of me really hopes I’m right, but another part of me hopes I get Jossed in a manner most eloquent.

yeah, it’s somewhat simple to read an original story written by a friend in those their souls are bared but if you know them it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, but in fanfictions their darkest desires are often revealed, either that or in some cases a nightmare of a story which you know they can write better in their sleep

I rarely hide behind anon, and in general only do so with a purpose based on a later reveal.

Anyone who wants to know something is free to ask… so why hide?

I figure if people are going to be out to get me, they’ll find me anyway, so there’s no such thing as “safety”. I won’t insult the intellect of people by being afraid or someone different~

As soon as I read ‘Magical Nookie’ I thought of The Dresden Files. Honestly if you love Harry Potter, you will love Harry Dresden even more. The recent comic reminds me of my own fanfic writing days.

I tend to act more or less the same as usual when anonymous. Hmmmmm… Does that make me shallow?

Maybe you DO have to look them in the eye every day… you just don’t know they read it, just like they don’t know you wrote it.

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