What Wicked Web We're Weaving

It’s been a rough week or two in the CyberGalaxy. At one end of the connectivity cosmos, a fraud in the Emerald City, Jason Fortuny, who duped the Craigslist sex-starved masses into sending to him graphic and revealing personal emails that were then splayed accross the world wide web for mockery and exposing.
Then, at the seeming other end of the sticky web, Lonelygirl15, who similarly duped the masses, but this time into believing a series of well-developed and elaborate hoaxes revolving around her as the poor disenfranchised trapped little daughter of overly religious parents.
And tonight we’ve heard the news that an avid blogger mother has apparently committed suicide while her child has been snatched from his crib. Missing, dead, who knows. Her blog reveals disturbing and dark imagery in her writing.
All in all, it’s been a rough few days for the blogworld. There are repercussions out there in the real world for what we do in this one. It sometimes seems a rude awakening to some bloggers, but it is what it is. I’ve had my last employer sending me emails about postings I’ve been doing. We discussed my perception of their firm. It’s been interesting getting that delayed reaction.
I plan to tackle these above topics in a single post over the next few days, but just to lay the groundwork, there’s the outline up there. If you have any opinions about the strangeness of these three varied examples of cybersecrets go boom, please do share.
UPDATE:
THE MOTHER WHO HAS COMMITTED SUICIDE as a result of a grilling by Nancy Grace on her scandalous Headline News show, after her toddler being snatched (but some suspect she had a hand in it, given the nature of her blogging) is 21-year-old Melinda Duckett.

7 thoughts on “What Wicked Web We're Weaving

  1. Anonymous

    Wait. You’re saying Lonelygirl15 is fake? Oh the travesty.

    I’m reminded of the Futurama quote:
    “Man, I thought Ultimate Robot Fighting was real, like pro wrestling, but it turns out it’s fixed, like boxing.”

    Regards and something something.
    Ano Nymous

  2. Spicy Little Pi

    when i first heard about the CL thing I thought it was funny…then how embarassing it must be for those men…but i guess it’s part of the risk in replying to something on CL.

    i bet they never thought it’d turn out like it did!

    as for lonelygirl, hadn’t heard of it before yesterday.

    (oh and i might be coming to vancouver in the next month…)

  3. emma

    I hadn’t heard of the blogging mom’s child being snatched. Did the person who did it find out her location via her blog? Very disturbing stuff.

  4. figleaf

    Hi Steff,

    Are you talking about the woman from Florida? If so I didn’t realize she was a blogger. I’m very sorry to hear about it no matter what.

    Take care,

    figleaf

  5. Anonymous

    I’m not familiar with any of these, and only read about LG15 last week on another blog, and the truth about that when it broke a couple of days ago on Viviane’s site.

    Would it a stretch to say that these people had a tendancy to do something like this anyway, and that the internet was their only “tool of choice”?

  6. serenity

    of course the mass media plays up the blogging angle, including that of the shooter in Montreal, as if writing in a blog is somehow more sinister than writing in a diary that gets tucked under the bed.
    as for the other examples… oh trust. how can i say don’t trust anything online when some of the best relationships in my life have started online? (relationships that made the jump to real life of course)… but.. trust no one!

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