hal tweets ·7:42 AM
A short piece I wrote for AOLnews about why Peep culture trumps privacy online. http://bit.ly/bQECsC
Blogging
2008,
18:36 GMT
Portrait of a Blogger on the Darkside
Posted by: Hal
Not really. In fact Padme, the primary author of the blog Journey to the Darkside is sweet as can be. Even over the phone with her I thought she was going to offer me milk and cookies. And blog posts with titles like Victoria Anniversary Night and Happy 7th Birthday Skywalker! don’t exactly come across as dangerous.
But innocuous fare about trips and birthday parties quickly gives way to posts like “The First Time I Sucked Two Cocks in One Night” and “Darth Vader is My Daddy”. What gives? I ended up on the phone with the very kind Padme (not, obviously, her real name) and found out the following:
Padme’s husband is also her master. He makes all the decisions and regularly spanks or whips her with a riding crop. This is part of Padme’s life and she blogs about it almost as matter of factly as she blogs about recovering from surgery and celebrating her wedding anniversary. One suspects, though, that it is the details of her sex life that have caused the site to get over a million-and-a-half visits since its inception three years ago.
Part of Padme wants to get exposed. In her emails to me she refers to the blog as private even though she knows as well as I do that the blog is a public document open to all. When I ask her about this she says: “It’s a public blog and there’s always a risk with that. I have heard stories of other bloggers being found out by their families, but we’ve been pretty lucky, so far no one has come across it. I’ve been kind of worried from the beginning about that. You almost half expect that someone will come up to you and say ‘I know who you are.’ “
Well Padme doesn’t just half expect it, I get the feeling she half wants it to happen. After all, this blog is very detailed and anyone who knows this couple even casually would probably be able to put two and two together.
So why take the risk? It’s pretty clear that Padme has come to rely heavily on the blog as a source of community, friendship, creativity and attention. As she tells me: “I don’t drive, I don’t work, I’m a stay-at-home mom and I’m alone all day. It’s been a great way to connect to people.”
Somehow, Padme is able to ignore the fact that she knows very little about the 3000 people a day who read her blog. She talks to me about overcoming embarrassment and writing as if it was just Master who would be reading. When I ask her if she thinks it’s odd that thousands of strangers know more about her life than neighbours, friends and family she seems momentarily flustered. Finally she tells me that, at the end of the day, the pros outweigh the cons and she simply “tries not to think about the lurkers.”
2008,
10:35 GMT
Secretive Israeli Spy Agency Bloggers
Posted by: Hal
Wow, even the Israeli spy Agency Shin Bet, long one of the most secretive operations in the world, is blogging. According to this article in the Globe and Mail, the agency has recruited 4 bloggers to put a human face on their work. But as we often find when secretive government or corporate agencies go public, there's a catch: the anonymous spies reveal little about their work and the agency and a lot about their personal lives. They talk about job satisfaction, patriotism and good salaries. They invite you to check out the Shin Bet recruitment web page. Tellingly, the blogs were set up in order to attract young high tech workers to the agency as it moves more and more from on-the-ground spying to spying via data collection.
2008,
14:13 GMT
Gawker Blogger Asks: Who Hired This PI to Investigate Me?
Posted by: Hal
Someone hired a Private Detective to investigate the Gawker blogger Hamilton Nolan. In a hilarious reverse Peep move, he’s uploaded pictures and contact info for the two PIs who have been blundering around his hometown in Florida looking for dirt on him for unknown reasons. This is a great story that shows the potential we have to peep those who are peeping us. Blogs can be equalizers, but before we get all excited about the new age of people power, we also have to realize that unlike most of us, Nolan is a professional writer with a huge platform. He’s able to get even in ways most of us wouldn’t have available to us. Still it’s nice to know the potential is there. Some days, you just have to shout it out to the stars: Long live Peep!
This is one of the Private Dicks hired to investigate Hamilton Nolan.
2008,
13:52 GMT
Looking for the Lurkers
Posted by: Hal
Hi everyone, a journalist/researcher in New York asked me to post this. If you're a lurker, help her out!
Do you spend a lot of time following blogs and twitters of people you don't know? Do you watch but don't participate? Do you find interest or comfort in people's daily routines? Are you familiar with JenniCAM, Justin.tv, or iJustine? I'm a reporter looking to speak with nonparticipatory, anonymous online users. Email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if this sounds like you.
2009,
13:36 GMT
The Digital Generations? Book Review by Hal in the Globe and Mail
Posted by: Hal
Hey all. Just recovering from the power outage that hit us the night before last and into yesterday morning. I can live without heat (even though it was minus 20 outside) but is life without computation worth living? Ha, I’m kidding. It wasn’t that big a deal. E’s school was closed so I lost a day of work hanging out with her and her various friends and associates. Once I got over my frustration – I was all set for a day of heavy editing work on the Peep book – I settled into Daddy mode and spent the day observing 3 year-old antics.
Speaking of the younger generations and their antics, here’s a review I wrote that came out in the Globe and Mail last week. It’s a review of two books that purport to explain the wants, needs, thoughts and possible effect of the so-called Net Generations.
Give it a read, let me know what you think.
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
A short piece I wrote for AOLnews about why Peep culture trumps privacy online. http://bit.ly/bQECsC
New content on the Broken Pencil website! Short fiction: Shack the Clam Girl + How to Make Your Own Game Cabinet http://bit.ly/b6CHLP
Tag Cloud
Archive Months
August, 2010
July, 2010
June, 2010
April, 2010
March, 2010
February, 2010