Stalking Catfish.

I stumbled across something called 'Stats' on Blogger a few weeks ago. Those that know me understand that I am Internet Savvy but prefer to ignore most of it and stick to the basics. I have no patience and need a personal trainer...if he looks like George Lamb then so much the better! Driving a computer is much like driving a car to me and believe me I suffer with incurable road rage. Not proud of it but that's how I'm made. I don't like foul language but get me in front of a wheel or a keyboard and a I can swear in 5 different languages not including Chinese! I digress. The 'Stats' I refer to are something that Blogger has introduced so that you can see who and where and how many times people are reading your Blog.

Blimey I thought, thats a bit Big Brother isn't it? Previous to this I had a little ticker counter on the bottom of Donut Child that was about as reliable as a dodgy motor bought from Arthur Daley, it kept resetting itself. Imagine my surprise when I clicked on Stats and found lots of people reading my Blog, all over the world. Some results were a bit worrying, I have 86 readers in Russia and 2 in Iran. The best bit is I am, apparently, a National Hero in Denmark! Whoo Hoo! Oh and the worst bit. One particular post has been read 526 times by the same guy.....shudder!

This brings me neatly onto the subject of the Documentary film Catfish made by brothers. Nev and Ariel Schulman. I am not going to go into the plot too much as it will spoil the film for those who have not seen it. You need to watch and/or review the film to understand where this Blog is coming from. Nev meets an 8 year old, prodigy artist on Facebook and befriends not only her, but her family. Nev is a dance photographer and Ariel is a film maker. What follows is a quite, mesmerising film but the Donut Child in me did not get sucked into the hype that is Catfish. Perhaps Nev and Ariel started to film events in innocence but I think the latter part of it was staged. The shots were too perfect.

I suppose that Catfish should serve as a warning to us all. We are entering uncharted waters. Or should I say, have entered. The Internet got so big, so fast that no authority in the world has a cat in hells chance of policing it. And thats the way I like it!!! So yeah, you can create an alter ego, the definition of which reads - A person's secondary or alternative personality. There is no harm in that. We all have an alter ego, whether it be inside our heads, the make up that females or males put on, the clothes we wear or the cheerful Tweets and FB posts that we deign to share with the world. FB and Twitter would be quite a turn off if we all posted how we really felt in everyday life. Catfish explores how FB and social networking sites can abuse the trust that we put in them. Big Deal! TV has done that for years, its called Propaganda folks....

The thing we all need to think about is EVERYTHING we put on the Internet cannot be deleted, it cannot be removed, you cannot even remove posts from Facebook now as (like me) many people have a separate email address dedicated to FB and the posts ping in to that email. Let me give you an example, a friend of mine was accused of a crime a couple of years ago. He was exonerated and proved to be totally innocent. Not before the press got hold of it though. He has spent a lot of time putting positive things on the Net to cover the nastiness that had been written about him. Why? Because he is a personality, a great philanthropist and as he puts it, 'a public domain'. The only way he can try and wipe out unfounded accusations is by spending time publicising his positive profile. It stinks for him but perhaps others are so stupid they do not realise or care what they are writing. All I can say is don't go running to your Ma when you get your fingers burned. Think about it..The Net is a bloody wonderful thing and used positively is changing the way we live our lives. Treat it with respect and don't be surprised if it comes right back at you and bites you in the bum!

Stay Safe

Muse x