Stalkers, Stalking, and the Stalked.

[Tequila Zaire]

Celebrity use to be an elite group but these days anyone can be one with the right buzz at a key club or webpage. That's both cool and a really big problem. It's cool because celebrity is no longer at the control of star makers but a problem in that the pitfalls of celebrity effect people who can't deal with it.

The defenition for celebrity itself are broader than ever. For example a popular blog can have a readers as devoted to it as any band or movie star. Great if you want the attention but a danger when you get the wrong kind of reader...in come the stalkers.

A few models here are well aware of the problem and all have a story or two but what happens when these stalkers get bolder and more intense? An A-List celeb can get the protection they need...a lowly soul with a weblog...not so much. Some go so far as to steal the identities of those they are fixated on while others do the typical "shadowing". This can consist of following them around town to keeping tabs on them online.

It's the online part that gets creepy...with the right accounts in the right places you can be 10 diffrent people to the person a stalker is after. In this age of multi-tasking a stalker can have more than one victim across multiple online communties.

So who or what can stop them? Laws on the books are ineffective and how do you chase or stop a person online? How can a person trust that closeness one develops online when the potential for that being exploited maliciously is so high? Before the biggest danger was hackers and script kiddies...now it's everything from sexual predators to assorted stalkers. Does a community have to police itself to some level? do online celebrities or really really popular souls need to be careful how and who they talk to? or is it all about common sense?

The fun of the net is that people can interact in ways they normally can't or won't in the flesh...I would hate to see that slowly killed off by people who want to exploit this interaction for their own vile aims.

[karyn]

i hate how often people cry wolf for stalking. it seems like internet models will call anyone who reads their livejournal a stalker just so they can seem famous. i don't mean Blue Blood girls who really are famous but girls who wish they were them. i hate wannabes. i agree people should use some common sense and not give out overly personal info to strangers. they shouldn't put it online if someone casually reading it will scare them.

[ForrestBlack]

I think we need more terminology. An undesirable reader is not a stalker, a person that uses your picture to make a social network character is not a stalker either. Some creep that digs too deep to find personal information about you and proceeds to make themselves known by showing up at your house or calling your work, etc. That is starting to get in legue with 'stalker' IMHO.

[Tequila Zaire]

Indeed the word stalker is being a bit diluted but untill more terms pop up it's the blanket word used. Granted an undesireable reader is not a stalker but given some go that extra yard to harass people via IM's, email, etc. The anonimity the net gives one (even if only in feeling) does contribute to this behaviour. I'm curious how far it will go though as more and more out online identities become as important as our offline ones.

[Toe Cutter]

Do you think it's really a problem? I just can't imagine it happens that often.

(although I'm trying to find out where you live TZ)

[kellie]

If you have to call the police, then you know its a stalker.

[Morning Glory]

the people that think because they do whatever shit they do means that people should look up to them are assholes. the people that DO look up to them are assholes. solution: just be yourself and worry about shit that actually matters.

[Amelia G]

If you have to call the police, then you know its a stalker.

I've got to agree there.

A thing which troubles me is that I feel sort of under siege and in some respects violated by the intense interest people online seem to develop in parts of my life which are not on offer to the general public.

Obviously, any artist is going to be a bit more vulnerable, but I feel like I should get to choose where I am vulnerable in general and where I get to save something for the people I am close with in my personal life. Only things posted to the internet are kind of there forever in many cases.

Before the internet, if a friend had PMS and got drunk and said something obnoxious, she could finish bleeding and sober up and apologize and I could hug her and genuinely forgive and forget. Now I feel like I can't even get close to anyone who is given to outbursts because if they say the obnoxious thing on the internet, my privacy can be violated to thousands of people in moments. Only I like passionate people, so that kind of sucks.

I certainly understand how people who never thought they would be celebs find they are under uncomfortable scrutiny. I understand why they feel stalked, but I think a lot of the people referring to that scrutiny as stalking are kind of offbase.

I know a lot of people deal with the whole issue by using a legion of net handles and there is something to be said for that, but we are all more isolated every day in many ways.

[drewblood]

message baord fanatics...the new paparazzi.

[Evilbink]

A thing which troubles me is that I feel sort of under siege and in some respects violated by the intense interest people online seem to develop in parts of my life which are not on offer to the general public.

Obviously, any artist is going to be a bit more vulnerable, but I feel like I should get to choose where I am vulnerable in general and where I get to save something for the people I am close with in my personal life. Only things posted to the internet are kind of there forever in many cases.

I personally dont feel it, not being in the public eye that you are. But I do feel for your (and others) situations. You want your work know and seen and heard, and at the same time you just want people to give you the space and privacy you deserve. Dosen't sound like an easy line to walk.