Am I who I say I am?

[jlh]

So due to recent wankiness there's this meme going around about who on your flist you've met, or how you know them, and who could vouch for you. Since in the past two years I've mostly friended people that I've met at some meet up or another, I have met a very high percentage of my flist, which is handy for denying sockpuppet claims. And there are a pile of people on this flist that are very close friends, that would have clarifying or verifying details, or what have you, and I think most of you know who they are.

Now, it would be nice to think that if something were really happening and I had some people to provide some information that this would be enough. But in my experience, if there's someone on LJ who is close enough to you to independently know facts about an incident, and who can provide things such as hospital information, etc, they're also perceived to be close enough to you to lie for you, fake documents, etc. Am I trusted by people who are also friends of my friends to tell the truth about them? Yes. Am I trusted by people who are not friends of my friends to tell the truth about them? Clearly not.

(This, by the way, is why if someone I know is in the middle of a wank, I go silent. 1-If I have a problem with my friend, I feel I owe it to our friendship to take it up with them privately. 2-If I don't, I have too much experience having my reasons for believing them dismissed because I'm "on their side" to think that making some public statement would help anything. 3-Making huge statements, in my experience, prolongs the wank and just brings me more attention, rather than calming things down, which is my own goal. So if you want to know what I think about some incident, you'll have to email me or find me in chat.)

We're in this strange space where the need for substantiation is higher than a lot of the ability to provide it. I can't verify for any of you that I'm in graduate school without giving you my name and my school, which I don't want to do. Someone on my flist goes to the same school, but why would you believe her? Wouldn't she lie for me, if we were all lying sorts?

For example, I was adopted, so even my birth certificate is a fake of sorts. I don't know anyone who was in the room when I was born. Do I know for sure that 23 August is my birthday? Only that I can't imagine that the hospital would lie. When I see folks implying that if you're not googleable you don't exist I start getting very, very nervous. I'm not googleable under my real name. And under that super duper thingum (the name of which escapes me) you can only find out my address. But you can't verify that I worked in the media industry, or what I'm doing now, or where I was born, or who my parents and siblings are, or any of that.

In the end, all we have are our own reasons to trust someone. The times that I have been burned online, I never could have covered myself; that person was lying to me as a friend. Try as you might, if you let people into your life, you will get hurt by them, and that happens on the street, too, not just online.

Comments

[ladylisse.livejournal.com]

My real name is very very common, so it's almost impossible to connect me with anything that way. I do wish I'd used a different online alias early on - like ten years ago my (non-"lisse"-using) RL and fandom emails were the same, because I was fourteen and wasn't that a huge mistake - but for me the sorta-kinda anonymity of the internet has always been a plus. There's a huge difference between deliberately lying and just plain not giving out information, which I think people miss.

And it helps to be completely oblivious to everything. I had no idea a meme like that was even going around.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

It's so true, because like, random strangers don't deserve to know billions of things about me. And not just the identifiable real life stuff, but also whatever my opinion is about something. (Like, and I know I've said this to you before? But that narcissam linked from bad_penny to an in-passing comment I made in your journal during the msscribe mess was downright creepy, as though it isn't enough for me to not talk in my own LJ, but I'd better not make any comments in any LJ's that anyone might come across, if someone I know is in the middle of a big mess.)

The meme really came from SV and only wound up anywhere near me thorugh a series of coincidences, and I was actually replying to a post I saw on metafandom by liviapenn about the whole, prove who you are thing.

[adjudicated.livejournal.com]

Very well said.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Okay, I love that the thumb is so goth he has a soul patch, but why only one eye?

[adjudicated.livejournal.com]

Maybe because he is a single digit! One eye for one thumb? It's a good question!

[folk.livejournal.com]

...you know, I'm glad that I'm removed enough from fandom to only hear about wank second hand. This whole PROVE YOURSELF exhortation is really dumb and pointless.

PS if I say I'm Baroness Ezmerelda von Hohenlohenzohenhohohohokushenlohe, will you back me up?

[longtimegone]

Word.

And for fun, I've been trying to pronounce that last name. Clearly, I lose at life. :))

[jlh.livejournal.com]

You have to follow it back to liviapenn to see the real flava, and it is off in Smallville-land or something, but whatever.

PS--Aren't you? I mean come on, there's a title in there someplace. I've seen you first thing in the morning. If you said you were the Queen of France, honey, I'd believe you.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

So due to recent wankiness there's this meme going around about who on your flist you've met, or how you know them, and who could vouch for you.

What I find incredibly funny about this meme is that every time I hear of some LJer having lied to people about who she is or some crazy woman killing some woman she met online and taking her baby, people are always saying "but I even MET her! She seemed so nice and honest!" or whatever.

In which case, what exactly does being able to say you've met a bunch of people even prove?

Am I trusted by people who are also friends of my friends to tell the truth about them? Yes. Am I trusted by people who are not friends of my friends to tell the truth about them? Clearly not.

And then there's that little niggling problem.

But I also think you're right, in that getting burned by online liars isn't any different or surprising than getting burned by people in 'real life.' Maybe the net-ether wall makes creating a mask a little easier, but in my experience, people are nearly as good at making up personas directly to other peoples' faces.

Eh.

[piperki.livejournal.com]

Wait a minute, I've met YOU. O_o What haven't you been telling me about? You have a sekrit PhD?

I've had a lot worse luck with IRL people than LJ people, but then I don't give out a lot of info...

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

Oops, this veered a little off topic, sorry.

I did that meme only because I thought it would be funny to see the groups on my LJ under certain headings/labels, and that's how the woman I picked it up from meant it, too, not as *actual* verification. I realise now that it's a slightly idiotic meme when put into the context of actually proving ones existence.

In the end, Livejournal is about two things for me: 1. being in contact with interesting people and the now-friends who used to be interesting people, 2. fandom activities such as communities and fic. Once people move from the fandom group into the friends/cool people group (usually because one of us moved on and fandoms are not shared anymore), I keep them if I want to stay informed about what is going on in their life, or sometimes because they also write thoroughly cool stuff about whatever. Then, an LJ relationship becomes about trust - either I trust them to present their actual selves / the self they want to be, or I don't, in which case I usually unfriend them.

So no, I don't need to know you're real because the "you" you present on your LJ is at least as real. I do know from a t00bage kinda what you look like, but that is completely immaterial to me. Your heritage, social circles, where you live, if you prefer oatmeal or bagels for breakfast, and finally whether you're famous in fandom or not only matter insofar to me as that what I read on your journal is something I like and usually find thought-provoking.

The hysteria that is being created about sockpuppetry is completely idiotic. I understand neither the faction that loves the sockpuppets because they create wank, nor the faction who goes up in flames about people who chose to get a sockpuppet for whatever reason (other than scamming people out of money, that, I take issue with). If someone wants to try being someone entirely different online from who they actually are in RL, be my guest, why should I care if that online persona is nice and does nothing to hurt me. I remember the case of someone in HP fandom pretending to be four years older so she'd be taken more seriously, and honestly, though I know some people who were hurt when they found out they'd been lied to, I can understand the temptation - people do treat you differently when they think you're an adult (straight / white / male / tall / skinny / whatever), rather than a teenager, no matter how mature you behave.

Anyway - long story short: I trust in people presenting themselves on LJ as how they want to be seen. I know it's mostly being shown chocolate sides, and I think it's good that way. The reason I love the internet and LJ in particular so much is because it gives me a chance to associate with people I would never meet otherwise, because scientists don't usually hang out with soft scientists, neither do high school drop-outs with PhD's, nor 40+'s with under-20ies, from all corners of the earth. I am under no illusion that that's also because I can be me on my LJ without the baggage of what I look like, that I have trouble getting my points across because I'm not so good with words anymore, my age, my position in German middle class society etc.. I am using the anonymity of the internet to my advantage, and I think others have that right, too. Forcing people into proving that they're 'real' smacks of the current trend of slowly sliding into a big brother society where one is not allowed anymore to not be confined by as many labels as possible. I really shouldn't have posted that meme in this context.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Tine, this was SOOO not about you. I thought your post was fun, and thought about doing it myself because it IS fun to look at how you know who you know, esp when your relationships with them have moved beyond that. It was fun to see my name up there under t00bs! If I ever have a issue with a post of yours, I'll comment directly; I hate passive-aggression and I try really hard to avoid it. (Though no one is perfect! I have my moments!)

I saw you say it was a meme and I followed it back and found liviapenn's entry before it hit metafandom and it was to HER that I was really replying (and some of that post was put as a comment on her LJ). Or to the people who thought any of this means anything. Please, you? You have more than once reminded me how to keep my head in the middle of wank, by your example and by your counsel.

But if I were honest, I just took this opportunity to respond to the stuff that happened this summer, and everything that happened afterward, in a way that I didn't feel I could at the time, because it just would have looked like more wank. So I was responding to, say, everyone who was pressuring others to "apologize" or everyone who thought that "statements of principle should be made" or who otherwise behaved as though everyone involved owed it to the fandom to do as they were told. I mean, really, if you think about it, it's insane, and it pissed me off. So this is about that, too.

As for the current wanks, I think lying is just lying. And some lies hurt--if you lie and someone catches you and you get your friends to shout them down on your behalf? Not cool. Some lies don't hurt, as you say, and everyone has to decide for themselves in their own way. For example, I think everyone who was friends with msscribe has dealt with that mess in their own way, and none of those ways are better than any other way.

In closing, I'm always so flattered that you find my LJ interesting, as yours is so consistently thoughtful about such a wide range of topics. You, lady, are awesome sauce.

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

And no, I didn't think you meant me, but what you wrote is true anyway. I believe it really is a slippery slope into 1984, and it's very important that we all keep vigilant, in a sense. The first time I realised how easily I could be led down the path of no resistance until it is too late was in a Latin exam in tenth grade, when we were asked about the morals behind following a law. I only got a B for that part, and it upset me, until I saw what the teacher had written next to my essay, which argues fervently that whatever the reasons, no-one should break a law. "But what about laws that are anti-ethical, such as some made in the Third Reich?" Since then, I have always endeavoured to question my own attitudes and opinions to make sure they are my own, that I'm not just running with a crowd.

So yeah, what I posted was clearly meant to be funny. But I did put it into the context of the existence meme, without clarifying that I was partly mocking that meme, partly just taking a funny idea and running with it. And that particular context of pathetically proving to the outside world that I exist - I don't want that associated with me or my LJ. It's a bit like you said above, either people trust me that I tell the truth about stuff or not, but if they need proof that I am a student of X at uni Y and got a scholarship for Z, or that my mum lives in Cape Town or that my girlfriend is not imaginary, then to where the pepper grows with them, as we say in German. If people require I prove myself to them in that way, then I don't even want to be lj-friends with them.

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

Eh, LJ swallowed my first paragraph! Weird. It was all about me dancing around and giggling because you called me awesome sauce. *grins*

[tropes.livejournal.com]

Once again you prove yourself more mature and eloquent than 99% of the rest of us including me.

♥

[tropes.livejournal.com]

ALso, I've never heard of that meme. I guess it's just not hit my flist then. But I can't imagine what about me that people might doubt, since I haven't made any great claims to accomplishment in my life -- it's no great shakes to get into grad school. The hard part is finishing, and I never did. So.

Anyway. The internets are for crack and porn. Or, at least, my internets are.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

It came out of the SV wank and ensuing paranoia, etc. etc. and only tangentially hit my own flist. It was not, for ex, derived from the Figgy thing. In the end, though, yeah. Evs.

[tropes.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh I see. Yeah, I just saw that on f_w.

People are so craven.

Anyway. Yep. *toddles back to the uninformed corner*