you think you have it bad?
At one time or another, I have heard any one of several bloggers who write about their personal life finally feel the crunch.
When anyone first starts their blog, not a goddamn person is reading. You can write about anything, no matter how incriminating, emotional, or involved with other people in your life. Then, at some subtle point, there's a change. Someone you know mentions casually that they didn't appreciate what you said in yesterday's post, and a cold chill runs through you.
Suddenly you realize that what you're writing is public, and that means that not just cool people in Australia can read your funny stories about your sexual exploits...your first grade teacher could technically type your name into a search engine and read the same funny story.
I remember when Meg had this experience, I remember when it happened to Shauna, and I remember when it happened to me.
I remember the moment it was no longer my little sacrosanct corner of the web to talk about whatever was affecting my life. Like any journalist (even a fluff-ass human interest journalist like me) I felt the responsibility of balancing truth with sensitivity to real people.
But goddamn, none of us ever had it as bad as Heather, who just got fired for Dooce.com, one of the best weblogs on the planet in my opinion.
What happened? Well, it all happened so fast...
14 days ago she posted a hilarious and self-effacing post about some people at her work. She didn't mention anyone by name, and, honestly...I didn't think it was that insulting.
12 days ago she posted mentioning that someone had sent an anonymous Email to every VP at her company, bringing her post to their awareness. (See the very bottom of the post.)
7 days ago she posted a funny post about serving quiche at a wedding, and then
Today she posted a post saying she got fired for her original post.
Just like that. It's funny cause I was just getting ready to do a post about her and how I can't read her blog in public for fear of looking like a hysterical fool.
Her blog is pretty, she puts so much into it, her writing is frequently insanely funny, and I think it's about to get a whole lot better cause...well, cause she's unemployed!
And Heather, honey...get a lawyer!
I think I'd like to do a follow-up to this post, so if you have any good stories about this, or a link to a post that illustrates this, please leave a comment or email me at danieltalsky@hotmail.com.