Taking Cyberesp

Cy-ber-esp
noun
1. the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or being accountable for one's actions via the internet.

Cyberesp is a word I just made up but I think it fits-to-a-T the emerging concept of having to own up to one's actions when engaging in the sharing of information obtainable by others by way of media available online. It's a portmanteau, of course, of cyber, referring to things online and responsibility a concept as old as the first human communities. The extent one has to be responsible in a still-developing online community is subject to many evolving standards and much debate.

All right, here's the skinny...

So this past weekend, I had the bright idea (heavy facetiousness implied here) to do another of my tongue-in-cheek crazy posts where I show off my black humor nature and reveal discoveries I made by doing simple Google Maps searches, incorporating Streetview and using visual information shown in YouTube videos.

I framed it up in a format kinda emulating one of those tacky TMZ-style articles that give readers the low-down via sketchy, likely-tweaked "facts" and subversive paparazzi photos exposing popular celebrities.

I was poking fun at both the whole exposé "journalistic" style and the whole institution of celebrity fandom in general. Like making Perez Hilton and the people he posts about both look the fool. Witty right?

Well, not when it hurts someone or makes them feel uncomfortable. Never in the nine years I've had this blog have I ever wanted to do that. Well, maybe on one occasion, but I'll get to that in a sec.

The post I put up Saturday night included real-life facts about certain YouTube vloggers that I have to admit should not have been posted. Period. I'm owning this and taking cyberesp in hopefully minimizing the after effects.

So, for the first time in all the years of this blog, I deleted a post. And also deleted similar posts like it I'd written in the past. This is big. I am usually the only one cringing and feeling poorly about anything I post here because sometimes, in retrospect, I put out TMI but I keep it up 'cause I want this to be real. Sometimes being real means showing vulnerabilities, flaws and all those things that go bump in the middle of the night. That's life. But it's MY LIFE and that is totally my call as far as sharing of information, but when one writes about other people, there has to follow a certain filter system especially if the subjects aren't available to validate or sanction such information. In there, I dropped the ball.

I gotta be honest too...most of the time I post something on here I figure no one is reading it but me. It tends to feel like I have free reign to say anything I want. My own lonely cyber soap box with an audience of none. But I guess that's not quite how it is.

I kinda learned that back in 2009 when I was having to deal with that horrible, horrible boss at the Chase Bank call center. I got pissed off and posted a rather sleazy photo of her I captured from somewhere, don't remember where, and within a few weeks, my pageview count shot through the roof. Well, "through the roof" in comparison to the virtually nonexistent traffic for any other post. There were comments placed on the post too, and they weren't all from the spambots. My lovely, lovely spambot readers.

Here spambots, a salutation in your language: 0010101010010001111000.

You're welcome.

See. My somewhat twisted humor (at least I'm smiling) at work again. I can't help it. It just pops out.

What I want to assure anyone who gives a fuck though, and I know that may well be no one, is that I'm not a dick. In regards to this weekend's post, I didn't put stuff up that I thought could in anyway lead to harm or even the potential for harm. I should have kept in mind that there are sick fucks out there though and they may have nefarious designs.

What spurred this re-think of my post was a video of one of a couple of the people I wrote about bemoaning the fact someone put their address in the comment section of one of their videos. I sure didn't do that and never would but I knew immediately where the commenter must have gotten that information. Since I had just the night before put that info in my post, someone took it upon themselves to "share" that with all the viewers of these guys' videos.

Checking my stats on this blog, I found that indeed my pageview count had skyrocketed right after I put up that post.

Look, I make no money off this blog. I have no Adsense and I have no intention of taking it along those lines. This was and will continue to be an ad hoc 21st century cloud-stored diary of my life's little meaningless trials and tribulations and blibbidy-blabber about the funnier, or sometimes not so funny things I find in this crazy scavenger hunt I call my life. I wasn't out to stir shit up so I could get more pageviews. I frankly don't care if anybody reads my dribble anyway. It's mainly for me. I don't daily vlog, I'm way too camera shy for that. The written word is my self-expression medium of choice. I clickity-clack little plastic cubes and shit appears on my monitor. It's what I do.

So, dear readers, including all the majority of you in Malaysia (according to the dashboard stats page...what's up with that?) please don't do trolly things with what I write. That's douchbaggery at its finest. Grow a virtual pair and take cyberesp!