Truth, Fiction and Anonymity in the Blogosphere

Lately I have been thinking about the whole debacle with the "Real Princess Diaries" website that happened last month. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, the blog is a site ran by a blogger using the pseudonym of "Alexa di Carlo" and it explicitly chronicled her life as an escort. Last month an article ran in Carnal Nation called "Reality and Faux Ho Bloggers" and it mentioned that there have been questions about the authenticity of Alexa di Carlo's story.

After the article was released, there was a heated firestorm over people arguing over this issue. Alexa's website was temporarily taken down throughout this situation and her twitter account went silent. Another blog popped up, asking for money in exchange for identifying information about escorts who blog. Carnal Nation released a statement that they supported the free speech of all parties involved, including the blog attempting to expose sex-workers. Alexa di Carlo finally returned to her blog, stated that she may not be blogging anymore because she has lost her voice. The last I have heard about it is that last week Mistress Matisse wrote an article about the situation, discussing various fictional sex characters and suggesting that she should have stated that she was writing a fictional account.

My thoughts on this entire situation is: Who really gives a fuck?

I used to read "Real Princess Diaries" after Alexa di Carlo followed me on twitter. I often read the blog, assuming that it was fictional or at least part fictional. Many of the stories just seemed too contrived and it just seemed to me that it was mainly fictional. But I would still read it every once in a while. Just like I used to read another "escort" blog called Peridot Ash, and I somehow suspected that it was not an entirely fictional account. I still started to see that although the stories might have been fictional, I was still able to catch glimpses of the bloggers' real personalities.

As far as I'm concerned, unless someone is blogging on a personal website about business, I am not too concerned if what I am reading is true or not. If someone is writing on a personal blog, I could care less if they are writing an entirely fictional story or whether they distort the truth here or there. It's non of my damn business. Writers are writers, and most writers at some point put a little creative license into anything that they write. I'm not going to get so attached and caught up in someone's online identity, especially someone who uses a fictional name and doesn't care to meet with people in person. If the story is good, that's all that concerns me, and chances are that there has got to be little tidbits of the real person within some of the stories.

More than anything I am just disappointed that she didn't just give everyone a big "fuck you" and keep on blogging. If someone allows other people to silence their real or fictional voice, well, then maybe that person shouldn't be a writer. People will always have some sort of criticism and if you can't handle it then don't blog or write.  

I blog anonymously and I don't owe it to anyone else to do otherwise. People blog anonymously for various reasons, and I haven't quite put my finger on my reason. It has something to do with the fact that I like to play with reality, identity and illusions. It's a way for me to express my creativity.

Ninety-eight percent of what you see with me is who I really, really am. Another one percent is probably bullshit because I like to add a little creative license every once in a while. Such bullshit would only be with insignificant events or details. Another one percent might be partly true with some of the facts distorted to protect the innocent. Sometimes I might blog about something that happened "yesterday" and not even post it for a couple of months. I might distort some details of time, place and certain insignificant events because other people in my story might not have given permission for me to blog about the event and I feel like I owe it to them to distort something to a certain extent. 

So there it is. If you are such an insecure person that you are going to fall apart because I am not sending you a picture or meeting you in person, well then I suggest that you should.....get a life.


Thoughts? Will anyone of you be having a nervous break down, now knowing that approximately two percent of what I say might be slightly distorted?