It's a weird thing writing on the internet for a living. It's a vicious place to work, that's for sure. But the internet can be cool in a lot of ways, too, and so I spend a lot of time here, even off-hours. It can be hard to draw the line between work-life and life-life, from professional space to personal space.
Take Facebook, for example. The other day, this person I know through work requested to be my friend on Facebook. She's an editor at a site similar to the one I work for and I happened to know they were going to be posting a scathing, personal attack against me — written by a guest contributor— later in the afternoon. A different editor from her site had sent me a draft as a head's up the day before (how nice of her). Strange she wants to be my friend, I thought. And then I figured, well, hey, maybe running that attack against me wasn't her call. Maybe she was overruled and she wants to be friends on Facebook so she can email me outside our work addresses and tell me she's sorry she couldn't stop it? I'm naive like that, see.
The post ran; it was vicious, unkind, and ... well, really idiotic, although the editors were thoughtful enough to delete the parts where the author called me an "AWFUL PERSON," a "racist," and said: "no, really, you're so disgusting." They left the link to this site though, my personal blog, to illustrate just what a pathetic person I am. But judging from different stats I've seen the author's little rant probably got about 400 views which, for a web magazine with a full staff and everything, is completely pitiful. This post will get more hits than that — even with password protection. Makes me wonder how the editors manage to earn enough money to even buy a few 6-packs, let alone pay their rent.
So anyway, the editor at the website in question sent me a friend request Friday morning and I accepted it. Two hours later she posted that vicious personal attack against me and I was all, "Hmm...but I thought we were friends now?" So I emailed her. And I told her I thought what she did was pretty crappy. I think I used the word "nauseating." And she emailed me back and said she stood by her decision to be a douchebag and said something about me — well, my writing, anyway — being "dehumanizing." So, this is when I would have defriended the bitch. But then I thought, No! This is the excuse I've been looking for. This is exactly why I hate Facebook and Twitter and all that crap. Because amid the people you would actually like to keep in touch with or reconnect with, are all these assholes that maybe you have to deal with at work or you had to deal with in high school and now they're suddenly seeping into your real life, the one you like to keep asshole-free.
So I deleted my Facebook account and I deleted my Twitter account — which, my God, I should have done ages ago. I always feel like such an jerk when I use Twitter — and I made this blog password protected...at least for the time being. I'll probably open it back up again in a few days — after all this blows over — but I couldn't let people who might read that shit written about me find their way over here and invade my personal space with all their gross negativity. That's right; personal space. That's what this is. This is personal. This stays separate from my professional space. I know I can't keep all the assholes out. I can't have some kind of presence on the internet and not expect to be bothered from time to time by pathetic losers who spend 18 hours a day on their laptops wishing they had enough social skills or good looks to to get laid every once in a blue moon. But I can try to keep then away from here. I can try to protect myself a little.
And speaking of pathetic losers, that guy who wrote the crazy-ass rant against me? The little twerp who said I'm such an awful, disgusting person? He has his own blog too. You've heard of it, probably. He actually just got a book deal out of it. Let's just say his parents might be awesome, but but he sure as hell isn't. And it's a good thing his book will be full of photos because the guy can't write worth a damn. He's a tip for him: if, after a long paragraph you have to write in parentheses "point:" followed by the point you were trying to make for the last five sentences? You never probably never had one.
