the public life

so in the last week, two people from my sidebar have quit blogging because of nasty commenters - jenny good and greg the boyfriend.

when we listen to music, or read people's words, we often feel an affinity with them - almost like we know them in some way. maybe they express perfectly an emotion that we cannot put into words. perhaps they sing about feeling, a longing that we thought was the private emotional hell of us alone - hearing about it from them makes us feel as though we are connected somehow. when we see characters in sitcoms over and over it's almost as though we know them, too.

the thing is, we project some of our longings and needs onto these people - the image we have of them is not who they really are. it's an imaginary construction made up of a creative expression combined with a figment of our imagination. they cannot possibly live up to what we imagine them to be. who could?

blogging is kind of the same thing, except maybe at a heightened degree - when i regularly read personal writings again and again, it is easy to forget that i am only seeing a portion of who that person is - i am only seeing what they are allowing me to see. i cannot expect them to be exactly who they portray themselves as when they choose to share some thoughts and feelings and a taste of their creativity with me twice weekly, or daily, or monthly, or whatever.

the difference, though, between me blogging and a recognizable celebrity blogging is that the malicious commenters who plagued me earlier this year probably can't recognize me on the street. i don't have to worry about running into someone who may have taken offense by something i've said.

(however, there is always the chance that someone who DOES know me in real life will come across this, make the connection, and use my thoughts, feelings and ideas against me, as someone recently did to lemon.)

while maktaaq has been frustrated and irritated and probably a little hurt by the crazy person who sent her 2000 emails because she disagreed with an opinion, she doesn't have to fear a face-to-face confrontation.

jenny good (wife of matt good) does, though. someone objected to a post she made and sent letters to amnesty international attacking matthew good. so, the only real response she could make was to shut down her blog.

greg the boyfriend ran into someone who read his blog regularly. he dared to be unfriendly to this perfect stranger - and because that person had projected their expectations of his personality onto him, they proceeded to attack him when he didn't live up to their imaginary construction of who they figured he SHOULD be. so, he shut down his blog.

i know there are a lot of crazies out there. and, unfortunately, lots of them spend a lot of time on the 'net. these lonely, socially challenged people or "trolls" as they are sometimes called, cruise around blogs, websites, and bulletin boards and like nothing better than to anonymously attack people, hurt people and see what damage they can do before moving on.

it seriously sucks. i think that i've managed to make some good friends through my blog - friends that i've met and friends that i will never meet, but friends nonetheless. i acknowledge the fact that someday the stupid commenters will come back and probably go for my throat again. at that point, i may shut it down, or go underground like lots of people are doing. but, until that day (or the day that sitting here a few times a week no longer brings me the joy it does now), i'll keep writing. and hopefully someone will keep reading :)