Basically, to heck with the Internet? / Repost from Fetlife

When I posted this over on Fetlife, the title was a little less clean. :)

I believe that I reposted here almost immediately after I posted the original on Fet.

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I intend to be away from the Internet for a while. How long a while? Long enough that I'm not sure that I'm ever going to come back. I could write a book about why this is, if I didn't have better things to do with my time than to write that book, and if I didn't hope that whoever is reading this would have better things to do with her time than read it, but I can certainly give a few reasons.

The triggering event, that which pushed me beyond the tipping point, was the suspension of my account on Twitter. No explanation for this action was given to me, which should be surprising, but isn't, because I didn't break any of the rules on Twitter. They just did what they felt like, and I find that sort of thing going on a lot, online, more and more, disciplinary actions taking place based on whimsy or downright insanity.

In a group I run on another social network (not to be named), somebody posted spam. As the admin on that group, I did exactly what I was supposed to do. I banned the offending party from the group, post a notice to the group stating that I had taken action, locked the discussion and reported the spam to the company. To my amazement, an anonymous company employee quickly sent me a warning to not post spam on the company's site, again, warning me that MY account might be deleted if I did that again.

Huh? What? I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I had never posted spam (and still haven't). I was the person reporting it. I sent a message in to Support reminding them of this fact, and never heard back. No action was taken against the spammer, who remains active on that site to this day. When I went into the company help forum to ask for help with this outrageous situation, I discovered that the bizarrely misbehaving support person who sent me that message had partially disabled my account in such a way as to keep me from posting to the Help forum, and there was no way to appeal this action, for which there was no conceivable valid justification.

I find this sort of thing going on more and more, as if these companies had been put in the hands of drunken adolescents who were left free to act without adult oversight. The staffs at these sites don't even seem to feel the need to pretend to be acting professionally or fairly, any more. The venality is out on the surface, as the support people spit on the users. You know, the people without whose gift of content, the companies would really have no product to sell. In their arrogance, Support at these companies, as it runs out of control, is snapping at the hand that feeds it. That makes the idea of focusing my efforts elsewhere tempting. What makes the idea irresistible is the thought that I have no compelling reason to do otherwise.

I guess in the old days, the idea was that the Internet would give us a platform from which we could speak to a mass audience. Maybe virtual life even worked that way, once, but today, site stats tell a different tale. A "highly successful blog" typically will see maybe about seven visitors per day. For comparison's sake, when I go to an open mike and read my work there, even on a slow night, more than 20 people will be present, giving me an audience at least three times as large as that enjoyed by the "successful blogger", without the headaches and drama that the Internet brings, and with the satisfaction of personal interaction.

There is also the stress of personal interaction, because my social anxiety disorder is still a problem, but one does not fight that by hiding at home, so an increased level of detachment from the Internet would arguably be healthy for me, even if it didn't seem likely to lead to a lowering of my blood pressure. Like a lot of people, I've been trolled and I'm tired of it.

As I looked at my twitter page with astonishment and growing anger, I found myself thinking of a meeting I had at any art festival, not so very long ago. I ran into the editor of a local literary journal, who encouraged me to submit some of my fiction to his magazine. I didn't, at the time, because I have issues. I didn't feel ready. I didn't feel good enough. But between this, and the scraping incidents on some of my sites elsewhere, the need to get the family lawyers involved in order to get my intellectual property rights respected ... eventually, even if one doesn't feel good enough, one does feel ready to say "no mas." The magazine folded before I could stop being mildly mentally ill and submit, but there will be others, and there is a world out there that if not drama free, at least isn't as crazy as the virtual world I've been encountering.

I mean, seriously - the belief that wanting to marry a woman who would be a good mother to one's children is proof of pedophilia? Never outside of the Internet have I encountered anything like that.

So, even though the weather will be getting colder, I'm going to be getting out a lot more, and it's about time. I'm going to be spending a lot less time on Fetlife and the rest of the Internet, and more time at real world events, at which I'll meet real people face to face, see if I can do my reading, and maybe look into being published. I had given some thought to self-publishing on the Internet, but given the frequency with which my often G rated sites (such as one I had with my vacation photos from travel out west) have been taken down without cause, self-publishing online seems like a far less viable and far more difficult option than going through the traditional print media!

Picture the experience of building up a site, working to get people to link to it, and then watching some yahoo knock it to pieces, wiping out all of that work, just because he can, over and over, leaving one to start the process all over again. It gets tiring and there do seem to be better alternatives.





As for Fet ... for reasons some of us can discuss offline, I was on the verge of abandoning Fet a few months ago. I periodically look through the list of local events (no, not in Antarctica) and find nothing to attend. When I do attend, men are numerous and women are scarce, and I seldom meet anybody. While my self-esteem issues (well developed as some of you know they are) might lead me to blame this on some perceived personal shortcoming of mine, I have eyes and I have ears, and as lacking as my social experience is, I can tell that I'm being flirted with when I go about my daily life. I have better options than Fet. I usually have not a clue as what to do with them, but I can work on that. And will.

A few of you, I know in the real world, and I'll be in touch with you. Platonically, let's not leave this on an accidentally creepy note. :)

As for the rest of you, over and out? Maybe I'll be back, maybe I won't. I just don't know.



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I got two replies to this, one from somebody I didn't know:

"Admire this. Taking many of the same steps for my own reasons. Don't know if I have the tenacity to cut ties completely. . . too much of an attention whore."

and another from a friend I'm still getting to know

"Noooooooooooooooooooo.

But I understand. I deactivate from time to time. What I've been learning is that not everyone is your friend. A lot of folks with a lot less experience get their name in lights because of nothing. No skill, no know how but because they are out and visible. It kinda makes me nauseous.

Or people taking credit for your work. I cannot tell you how often this happens to me. I just grin and bear it but after awhile...it gets old.

But I'm as a psychology student, when something or someone squaks me the wrong way, I try to understand what it is and why. Most times, I find its because of a trait in me that reminds me of them, that I don't like.

I know that you have your own good reasons, but let me tell you that you will be missed and get my number before you do."