Too Much Information
I'll pick on Mur because posts about her are what got me thinking about this:
On the Pseudopod Episode Comments thread "Lowky" said "Also I noticed that you mentioned the Arkham Horror Board Game on both Psuedopod and Geek Fu this week." While over on About Psuedopod, she was being hailed as a "goddess" for bringing reviving the "...'cause I have a story for you." tag line. Now I haven't listened to Mur's Geek Fu nor do I read "I should be writing." but I'm sure there are plenty of people who already do, and it seems to me that with each new source of information Mur provides (be they pod cast, blog, book, or Con panel), she would be giving up more personal information about herself. I don't mean social security numbers or credit rating, but political views, domestic issues, childhood memories, and personal habits.
I know it's not always easy to keep your work life and home life separate, but if you have a rough week at the office/house things won't ripple too far outside that sphere, but that doesn't seem the case here in Teh Intarweb. If Mur were to make an off-hand comment about a bad haircut there might be Bangkok who will write in to sympathize, or bloggers in Calcutta who will ruthlessly badmouth the stylist. And then there's also the problem of us denizens of the web having LONG memories for (and getting over excited about) things such as Steve's Pink Unicorns. Potentially that means that Mur's bad haircut from 8 months ago might become the running gag for a few out-of-touch fans at next years Con.
Another side of this, and probably the most alarming to me, is how one-sided it is. While fans can scour the web for information and meta-data on their favorite web personalities, build shining websites in their honor, and tracking their every utterance, but the objects of the adulation get nearly no information about their fans. Although us fans might know what their favorite kind of cookie is, they won't know us from a hole in the ground if we bring them a plate at their next public appearance. I get that it’s scope, there’s only one Mur or one Steve for us to watch like a bug, and there are hundreds of us who are watching, but it can’t make it any less weird… can it?
So, how much is too much to share?
How do you balance sharing tidbits of your life with out over sharing?
What's it like having people tracking you?
Any weird encounters?
How/do you manage fans?
I don't mean this to be Mur/Steve specific. They're just easy targets.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2007, 12:42:24 PM by Thaurismunths »
How do you fight a bully that can un-make history?