Cyberstalkers the price of success? (re Steve Almond in Salon)

[carolinayellowdog]

Hey,

Today Salon has an article called "The Blogger Who Loathed Me" by Steve Almond:
http://salon.com/books/feature/2005/10/13/blog/index.html

4 paras of excerpts:

Indeed, it struck as me as one of the dinkier titles in the history of belles-lettres to be the president of the Steve Almond Haters Club -- like being an ambassador to Liechtenstein, or maybe, more accurately, an ambassador from Liechtenstein.

Pynchon. DeLillo. Foster Wallace. These were authors one might be proud to revile. But me? I was a short story writer with a small press. The closest I'd come to the New Yorker was a subscription. I couldn't even find an agent to represent me...

For another thing, my discussion with Pete had hipped me to the idea that Sarvas wanted, rather desperately, to be involved with me. Whether he knew it or not -- chances are not -- he was toting around a whole scrotum full of fantasies. The basic one in which he mustered the courage to insult me to my face. The exalted one in which he read so brilliantly at our shared appearance that I was forced to bow down before him and admit that he was right: I really was just a self-promoting hack. The kinky one in which we slapped one another with silk gloves then changed into tights and fought a duel.

It was my job not to gratify this shit. Any sign that I knew who he was, that he mattered to me in any way, would simply give him too much pleasure. (Let me be honest: I was concerned he might ejaculate in his pants.) So I had to be very detached.
-------------------------------------------------

I read this piece with horrified fascination, because my experience with an envious literary cyberstalker has now been going on for more than ten years. Only recently I learned of two fake personae he used to engage me in discussion with harmful intent. His obsessive online attacks are even freakier than those of Almond's stalker, because religious mania and fraud are combined with literary envy. Almond doesn't provide much solace in explaining the phenomenon, but I found it helpful to know I'm not alone. Much more obscure than Almond, I continue to be amazed that a couple of university press books that sold fewer than 5000 copies ten years ago could inspire an apparent lifelong destructive obsession. "Why ME?" is even more justified in my case than in Almond's. But the main questions that have perplexed me for ten years now are these: 1) how could any aspiring author make such a relentless display of literary envy without knowing or caring what it reveals about his twisted psychology and 2) how could anyone enable such a vile parasite by pretending that his activity was anything but than pathological and self-destructive?

Has anyone else here experienced this phenomenon, or observed it? What does it mean?

CYD

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I have, for seven yaers I had not one but several cyber stalkers

to teh point that if I ever go to certain events I know they will physically be there, I will rent or beg for Kevlar

[carolinayellowdog]

2. My God! Any clues about their motivations?

that you can share without revealing your identity, that is? There are online fora where my stalker has repeatedly put up multiple posts in a day with my name in the header in all caps with lotsa exclamation points. (In disparaging context, of course.) But the risk of physical assault or worse is another level of danger entirely.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Envy, hate

as best as I can tell it, not towing a particular line they happened to follow. they also fall in the category of game players, (RPG), who believe their game is the best and cannot accept any criticism of it, in any way, shape or form

What they hated the most is... I have moved on, they in many ways, did not.

Also, as I told one of them recently, who actually apologigized, we are at war. I sent a husband to war, and you think this stupid little game is that important? Excuse me while I vomit. that said when I finally make it to taht trade show, will have to see about Kevlar... I trust them as far as I can throw them

;-)

And unfortunately many other game designers know that some of their players take these games a tad too seriously

Oh and Stephen King, one of his stories was based on a collection of his best fans :sarcasm: so this is not limited to the web.

[JitterbugPerfume]

3. stalking is a crime

call the cops

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Before 9.11 they did not take it taht seriously

trust me I did... after 9.11 hopefully they will

;-)