Avoiding the Emily Gould Effect: Blogging, Narrative &

 Transparency 

Susan Mernit & Viviane 

September 26, 2008 

“Of course, some people have always been more naturally inclined toward oversharing than others. Technology just enables us to overshare on a different scale.”

.—Emily Gould, Exposed, NYTimes magazine, August 2008

What is this talk about?

• Putting your sex & relationships stuff out on the web

• Oversharing vs. Transparency

• How the real time web changes things

The internet is forever   

•  If you’re thinned skinned or sensi?ve, don’t do it. 

•  What if a date or prospec?ve employer Googles you and finds your wri?ng? 

•  What is the agreement with your partner or the person you’re da?ng? 

•  How will you feel when you read your narra?ve years from now? 

Case Studies in Notoriety: Julia Allison, Emily Gould, Xeni Jardin, Zoe Margolis 

Julia Allison, 2007: Girl about town heads to Silicon Valley….

Julia vblogs with the start up boyfriend, hits high tech parties, twitters about clothes…they break up…in public. Reblogging Julia happens.

What do you get when people laugh at you? Attention. • 146,000 Google links • 500,000 + views on YouTube

Julia Allison, August 2008: The Paris Hilton of the Net gets the cover of Wired, sets records for newsstand copies sold.

2006: Emily Gould starts blogging about her dating life in gossip rag Gawker—and tells everyone in the office about dating a co-worker.

“I’m going to try to never write about you,” I whispered to the boy whose shoulder my head was on two nights ago.

…Oops.”

“I had made my existence so public in such a strange way, and I wanted to take it all back, but in order to do that I’d have to destroy the entire Internet.”

--Emily Gould, Exposed, NYTimes

2008: Emily Gould sells a cover story to the New York Times on her blogging regrets, gets 1, 216 comments and a reported $1MM book deal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJLjfJgrqIU

2008: BoingBoing editor Xeni Jardin removes blogger Violet Blue’s posts from BoingBoing—1,500 people comment. .

Xeni tells the LA Times: “I just wanted to take this material down for a host of reasons that I don’t want to talk about in public…”

Violet Blue responds on YouTube—quoting Metafilter commenters.

Show first part of Violet Blue video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJLjfJgrqIU

Girl with a One Track Mind

Zoe Margolis first blogged about sex in 2003. In 2006, she published a book and got outed in a UK paper . Life as she knew it crumpled.

“…I lost all trust in dating, and men in general, removing myself from the dating arena entirely. The months after my 'outing' in the press were spent mostly on my own - ironic for such a previously 'active' sex diarist.”

Zoe changed her job, moved to the States, and continues to blog, but her dating life is forever colored—badly-- by her fame.

Provoking questions:

Are women who blog about their sex lives punished for being’ sluts’ ?

Is a guy writing about his coke habit okay, but a woman writing about sexuality isn’t?

Are we all sex-phobic?

How could this story be different?

Making your narra,ve work: Melissa Gira Grant, Rachael Kramer Bussel, Rex Sorgatz, Nick Douglas 

Melissa Gira Grant Blogger, feminist, sex worker advocate, former sex worker.

“No one can blackmail you with the truth.”

:Rachel Kramer Bussel

Writer, editor, cupcake maven, event impresario, performer

“Once you get used to sharing in a certain way, whether it's via blog or Twitter, and you do add a level of openness, it's hard to back down from that without people thinking something is wrong.”

Rex Sorgatz, Blogger, author of NY Magazine’s The Microfame Game

“Countless other people are trying to manufacture microfame, over and over again.”

Nick Douglas

Writer, comic, performer, twitterer

“…A professional writer can't overshare, they can only waste good material or put something out there before it's polished enough”

So how do you strike a balance between oversharing and transparency?

Observations….

It helps to have a process

What is the agreement you make with yourself about your narrative?

• Don’t post in anger • Don’t blog drunk • Is fisking your art form? • Do you snark, bigtime? • How much do you share?

Create Your Narrative  

•  Build strong public persona/image on the web 

•  You are what you write or link to •  Comment and reblog 

•  Build rela?onships online and IRL •  Be consistent in your presenta?on 

Monitor chatter    

•  Egosurf: What are they saying about you? 

•  Google News alerts – comprehensive (web, groups, news) 

•  Search your name, domain and email address 

•  Technora? linking 

Audience feeds on you 

•  Communi?es want to help or may tear you down 

•  Mob mentality/piling on 

•  If you get into conflict, don’t keep replying – you’re building content for the search engines 

•  Raise your hands and step away from the computer 

Pick your Platforms 

•  Func?on follows form – Some pla`orms are more conducive to discussion, finding shared interests than others (Livejournal, Tumblr) 

– Some are beber at protec?ng privacy and limi?ng discussion to friends (i.e locking posts on WordPress, en?re blogs on Blogger), 

– Real ?me: Twiber, FriendFeed 

Privacy 

•  NEVER give out personal iden,fiable informa,on 

•  Use a proxy server so site owner can’t analyze where you’re coming from 

•  Moderate comments 

•  Block users and IPs? •  Don’t let Google index you •  Get out of the cache 

Turning it back to you 

•  How do you manage transparency ? 

•  Do you WANT to be transparent? 

•  Is this genera?onal? 

References  "Exposed" by Emily Gould hbp://?nyurl.com/3`uxs 

Emily Gould hbp://www.emilymagazine.com/ 

Julia Allison hbp://www.juliaallison.com/ 

Jakob Lodwick hbp://jakoblodwick.com/ 

Reblogging Julia hbp://baugher.tumblr.com/  

"The Dangers of Blogger Love by Joshua David Stein hbp://?nyurl.com/4qrkn5 

 Xeni Jardin Personal site: hbp://xeni.net/ 

"That Violet Blue thing" hbp://boingboing.net/2008/07/01/that‐violet‐blue‐thi.html 

"Lessons Learned" hbp://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/18/lessons‐learned.html 

Violet Blue Personal site: hbp://www.?nynibbles.com 

Zoe Margolis Girl with a One Track Mind hbp://girlwithaonetrackmind.blogspot.com/ 

References  Melissa Gira hbp://www.melissagira.com/ 

Rachel Kramer Bussel hbp://rachelkramerbussel.com/ 

Rex Sorgatz hbp://www.fimoculous.com/ 

"The Microfame Game and the New Rules of Internet Celebrity" by Rex Sorgatz hbp://nymag.com/news/media/47958/ 

 Friendfeed hbp://www.friendfeed.com 

 Livejournal hbp://www.livejournal.com 

Tumblr hbp://www.tumblr.com 

Wordpress hbp://www.wordpress.org 

 Proxify hbp://www.proxify.org 

Tor Project  hbp://www.torproject.org/ 

Contact Us 

Susan Mernit 

www.susanmernit.com 

mernit@gmail.com 

Viviane 

www.thesexcarnival.com 

viviane212@gmail.com  

Note: This talk will be posted on SlideShare