Curiosity
killed the cat; a popular metaphor but a chilling one for the topic at
hand. First I would like to shout my ignorance from the rooftops on a lot
of parts of this topic. I am not familiar with the author or blogger
surrounding this controversial topic in my social media newsfeed I have been
reading. I have not read the author’s book, any of her articles (before now, I
have now read the article I will reference later), and frankly had not heard of
her before this. I have not had first hand experience with the blogger either;
I have not seen any of her social media newsfeed or read any of her reviews. So
to me, this means I cannot comment on the quality of their work or writing. In
my ignorance I can only write about things I have seen pop up in my newsfeed on
this topic and let’s be 100% honest here, getting our news that way is not the
most accurate of sources. As a new blogger I fought to say away from this
topic. Ideas kept popping into my brain and I kept trying to shut them out,
basically to the point that despite my resistance this blog post had pretty
much fully formed inside my head. I started typing out my ideas multiple times;
only to either erase what I had started or leaving the post behind as a draft.
I felt it was too early in my hobby to touch such a taboo topic in fear that I
may isolate myself from authors or my fellow blogging community. But here I am
anyways…
These are my opinions on some
of the broad topics I saw come out of this controversy and not the author or
blogger in particular because of my lack of information of their work and what
happened between them.
Before
I address the topics I’d like to cover, I would like to say that I do not in
any way agree with all the things I heard this author did, many from her own
admission in her piece in the Guardian. From the information I have been given
I believe her behavior was probably unstable and definitely stalking. The
behavior I read about was scary, for the author herself and for others. For
those of you who do not know what I am talking about, this blog post took
fruition from an article in the Guardian, 'Am I being catfished?' An author confronts her number one online critic,
written by Kathleen Hale. Since this article has come out, my newsfeed has
exploded. Even though I don’t feel well informed on the topic I would like to
address some things from the article that I read; Theses are the main points
from the article I found unnerving:
- The author’s frantic behavior while on the phone with a friend: drinking and cyber stalking the blogger.
- Paying for a background check on the blogger.
- Ignoring all warnings from people that she needed to stop her behavior.
- Seeking out advice from professionals (Nev Schulman, from Catfish and a doctor) who must have been hard to make contact with and have one on one conversation with. Nev must get hundreds of messages a day from people who are being catfished yet somehow she got trough to him and had more than one conversation.
- The author admitted Nev seemed uncomfortable with her plan (“Nev responded cagily”) and she still went through with it. A man whose job it is to confront catfishes seemed uncomfortable with her idea.
- Actually going to the bloggers house uninvited and unannounced.
- The fact that you want me to believe you had a copy of Anna Quindlen’s, A Short Guide To A Happy Life by coincidence and thought it would be better to give that as a “peace offering” than coming empty handed.
- Looking through the car parked outside the house.
- Calling the woman at work
I don’t want to go deep into the
topic of the author but this behavior seems very unstable to me and through
reading the article the author seemed to even realize the mistakes she was
making as she made them. Then she was given a platform to tell her story and in
my opinion, even through her own words she did not present herself in a
positive light and the article seems like another way to obsess over this
blogger now that her direct contact has been taken away. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt until I read her own words. Her Goodreads section
has flooded with negative reviews and I cannot go through my newsfeed without
seeing something negative written about her. I Googled her in my curiosity at
what was being talked about on my newsfeed, and I came across her webpage. On
the homepage and the first thing I saw was a video titled, "7 Things You Didn't Know About YA Author Kathleen Hale" The 7th
thing was unsettling to me, since everything that has happened. She eerily
jokes about committing murder herself and it may have come across as cute
before, but since this article release I would think her jokes about murder
would not be something she would want to showcase.
Moving
on…
Because like I said, this post is really about my thoughts on some of the
topics I saw arise out of this controversy. Many times with controversial
issues people tend to verge hard either left or right. When many times there is
a safe mid-route to take.
The
first topic I would like to address is that authors should not be reading their
own reviews. I am not a published author but I disagree with this statement for
many reasons. As a blogger who has my own blog page, I am guilty of checking my
stats, page views, comments, and followers; so I think it would be silly to say
if I had written a book that I would not look over my reviews. I believe
authors can gain perspective from reading their reviews. Critical reviews may
help them gain insight into something their readers didn’t connect with or see
more clearly how they can improve their craft. Does this mean I think authors
should engage and comment on each bad review defending their work? No, but I do
believe when an author reads their reviews it can be beneficial to see what the
readers liked and disliked about their books. If reading your reviews turns
into obsessive behavior, than yes; maybe it is an activity you shouldn’t partake
in. Also as a blogger who takes time in writing reviews for books I have read,
it is exciting for an author to read what I have written or repost my review
announcement. When an author tells me they appreciated my review I feel a job
well done. Granted I try not to write outright hateful reviews and try to just
offer my insight when I am not overly pleased with something; so most of the
reviews I am putting out is for material I have fell in love with. I have not
had the experience of writing an outright bad review and then an author seeing
it. So when authors take the time out of their busy day to read my review, I
feel like I have helped them and helped other readers.
This
last point brings me into my next topic, that author’s in no way should
communicate with bloggers. Again I disagree with this. I have only been
blogging for a short time but I disagree completely. Some of the most positive
interactions I have had in my book blog social media experience have been
interacting with authors I have reviewed. Do I think authors should actively
seek out bloggers who have given them bad reviews? No, but I don’t think it is
inappropriate for authors to communicate with bloggers in general. I have had
authors ask me to review their books; authors praise my creative ideas, and
tell me they loved my review. I don’t feel these interactions are inappropriate
and well, they make me smile.
Next,
I’d like to address the topic of negative reviews. First and foremost I would
like to say that people have the right to say whatever they want, freedom of
speech and press and all that. I would like to say again that I have not read
the blogger mentioned in this article’s reviews so I am not saying she has done
anything I disagree with. I am speaking about negative reviews in general. Negative
reviews are a hard subject to broach. I personally try to stay away from
outright negative reviews because what I didn’t care for, someone else may
love. With that being said, I feel if you leave a negative review it should
have examples to back up your opinions. For instance, if I said, “This book was
not for me, the male lead in the book kept bringing the female balloons in
everything other chapter. I have an irrational fear of balloons so this was
something I could not get past and ruined the whole read for me,” (Please
ignore my ridiculous example, I didn’t want to point any exact fingers from
specific books and yes I have a real irrational fear of balloons, whatever) in
my negative review I stated my reasoning behind my dislike of the book. Now
future readers who read my review can decide if this is something that would
bother them or something they can look past.
On
the subject of a blogger’s anonymity, I don’t believe a blogger not using their
real name is wrong. Hell, many published authors do the same. If you have seen
my social media you know that I also do not use my real birth given name, for
my own reasons. Obviously “Raunch” is not my last name. People I am interacting
with know this and I don’t believe they see it as me deceiving them. Sometimes,
for whatever your reason it is healthy to draw a line between the social media
world and your real life world. For people to say that people’s opinions are
discredited because they don’t use their real birth given name on their platform
is ridiculous. Some of my favorite authors use Pen Names and many bloggers I
have come upon do the same. I don’t post pictures of my face or of things that
could give away my identity. Many pictures I use are generic pictures I have
Googled to display what I am actually doing, even if it is not myself in the
pictures. Since I do these things, it does not mean my opinion is less valid.
It means in a world where the Internet can be a scary place, I do not want to
put it all out there.
This
is how I feel about the topic that I have seen flood my newsfeed. I hope that
this incident does not scare away bloggers, because what you do is important
and I hope that it also does not harm the relationships between blogger and
author. I think every one can use a
little positivity and kindness, let’s use our platforms that way and not focus
or obsess on the negative.
Leave
me your thoughts…
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