Weirdest Internet Fears

More people than just me have to be paranoid about their Internet and fandom life, right?

Anyway, I have the fairly common fear of "If something bad happens to me, I'll disappear and no one who talks to me in my fandoms will know what happened." - This is somewhat allayed by the fact that my fiancee'/hubby goes to some of the same fandom places I do and would probably say something on Fanfiction.net or Deviant Art if we didn't go together. He actually *has* shared my near-misses, as I recall, on his DA journal which I read after coming home from the hospital... (random accidents and psych issues years ago. Don't worry, I'm not sick).

I also have the fear that people I've lost contact with over the years are in a bad way or gone... Again, I think these are common fears.

I have the outright weird fear about "people I've lost contact with that I know are still around and just don't cross paths with anymore - what would they think of me if something bad happened?"

It's a bit of a fear I have in meatspace, too. I've been mostly estranged from my blood-family for several years. I talk to my parents on the phone and exchange mail sometimes (they found the Interent not to their liking, so I have to do snail-mail with them). As for the rest of my family... I haven't talked to them in years. Do they still think I am the person I *was?* I've thought of biting the bullet and finally getting a damn Facebook for contacting my family purposes, but have remained lazy about it.

As far as my crazy geek/ fandom life goes... is where it really gets weird. "If something were to happen to me, would Fandom Wank know?" This is a serious fear of mine. I used to be, 5-6-7 years ago, one of their four-star wankers. Me and a then (toxic) friend of mine were bit into harassing people in a small fandom we were in over shipping and other stupid crap. We eventually became bitter enemies and our snipe-fights were well-watched. I see the whole drama between me and hir as a testament to why two mentally unstable people should not become friends rather than seeking professional help. (I've gotten a lot more mellow since I've gotten some). I have no idea what happend to the ex-friend - one of those to which contact was lost.

Anyway, I also remember seeing from time to time on Fandom Wank's little network people talking about former wankers who died. They wound up curbing themselves before things got disrespectful, but they still remembered "wanker as wanker."

I know it sounds wanky in and of itself to cry out "But I've chaaaaanged!" - except, I actually have changed a lot since I browsed the old site and was a person held up for ridicule there. I mean... if I suddenly died or worse, if FW even caught wind of it because someone recognized my Interent username which hasn't changed in a decade, I'd kind of like *someone* in my *current* fandoms to politely point out "She's not a homophobe anymore" or something to that effect. No, I never got into yaoi, but I used to be homophobic and an now, insomuch as I have any power making random comments online, an LBGT-rights-advocate (from an actual religious perspective, believe it or not...actually...) I changed a hell of a lot on that view. I'm still a bit of a bipolar-berzerker anger-beast sometimes if someone pushes the right buttons and still generally insane, but... in fandom, I don't care what ships people have, in general, I'm laid back because things have happened in my life to mellow me.

I'm also in different fandoms than the one that had me wanking all over the place. I've discovered my Nintendo-fandoms and seem to be, insomuch as I'm known at all, well-liked in them. Some people in Legend of Zelda fandom have treated me like a fanfiction-writing legend... It's, all-around, just a better fit for me, perhaps because you can make Link whatever you want as far as shipping and people in said fandom care more about the Timeline and gameplay than about shipping, anyway.

I mean, I don't know. I don't even know why I thought about this out of the blue, but it is a WEIRD little Internet-related fear, this "I don't want Fandom Wank and like places to piss on my grave should something happen to me, they should at least know that I've had some opinion/personality changes over the years." I don't even know why I care, even an inkling, but it has tweaked my brain.

So, do any of you have any Internet-based-fears that are nearly as weird as this?

My fear is that, no matter what community or fandom I become a part of, no matter how much I post/give my opinion, I never really become known at all, or become friends with many people.

Wait that's not really a fear is it

I have like full security options on all my online accounts like Facebook and stuff after a really creepy/weird thing happened last year.

I'm really paranoid about adding anyone on them since. Thats the only really bad thing that has happened to me, and its not even that big of a deal

1.) That someone I know personally will discover some of the less family-friendly sites of which I am a member.

2.) That someone will discover the thoughtless, rambling naïveté I displayed on a couple newsgroups around 2002-2004. Back when I was a teenager who acted like a ten-year-old, and not a late-20s who acts like a teenager.

I've mentioned before in Insecurities, Sadness, Anxieties, and Other Such Matters that I'm afraid to use my Tumblr account too, simply because I'm white straight cis male and don't think anyone with any combination of those traits is a racist sexist transphobic homophobic over-privileged shitlord. While it's hard to say how much of Tumblr's social justice community actually believes in what they say and how much are just trolling (the revival of freebleeding is due to the latter), the crazier folks on that website can't just agree to disagree, they have to censor anything they disagree with. Say I don't think white people are responsible for everything wrong with modern society (considering there are some people who honestly believe contemporary whites are fully responsible for the sins of their ancestors...), or that women and men have basically the same opportunities these days ("OMG YOU ARE LITERALLY THE PATRIARCHY"), or even that I don't judge people based on race (which is cultural erasure, somehow), and I lose half my followers, find my inbox flooded with a swarm of kill-yourself messages, and possibly have my personal information posted online, directly encouraging violence and/or hate mail.

Even if I agree with them on other issues - racism and the patriarchy exist (in America at least) and are bad, judging anyone based on their gender is not cool, animals have rights too, basically just respect people for the contents of their character and not for their genetics - one little disagreement can balloon horribly out of control, possibly to the point of doxxing. It is not a fun feeling to have people you haven't met know where you live. People who hate you.

That someone will eventually gain access to the PayPal account database.

Not simply because it would be a grand-scale leak of credit card information; Target suffered from one of those a while back. More because, unlike Target, PayPal is a site on the Internet, and thus credit card companies will hold the account owners liable for any purchases made in the meantime.

After all, it was the cardholder who chose to post their credit card number on the Internet.

I dunno, I think you could probably argue for that being like your card was stolen or identity theft. Just because you absentmindedly put your card down on a table in a store, that doesn't make it okay for someone to copy the number down.

In real life, perhaps.

On the Internet, it's always the victim's fault.

Pretty sure that's not how it works.

No, not really...? 99% of the time it's the culprit's fault for being an asshole, even online.

edited 9th Aug '14 12:03:07 AM by Midna

Really?

In that case, explain:

• The continued prevalence of trolls, people who deliberately dance on the lines between acceptable/unacceptable and free speech/harassment for no personal gain, without fear of even misdemeanor levels of fines/jail time or any kind of ISP ban, with the only amount of recourse available being site-wide IP bans that don't work, such that the general viewpoint is that if someone insults you and you become offended as a result, it's your fault.
  • in·sult verb in-ˈsəlt : to do or say something that is offensive to someone
• At least two occasions where I have been forced to reformat or replace my computer due to viruses (let alone more numerous instances of less damage), at cost to myself, none of the costs being funded by taking money from the people who actually created the things, such that the general wisdom is that any virus my computer contains is my fault, because of a) my choice of sites (which shouldn't be relevant), b) accusations that I lack a proper anti-virus (I have one, that I continually have to pay for, from my own money, solely because of the actions of jerks), or c) my lack of using software that was created with the sole purpose of denying compensation to site owners and companies that have invested the money necessary for me to browse sites at no personal cost in the first place.
• The fact that no one has ever criticized me for being listed in the phone book, yet have frequently been criticized for having my name available on the Internet.

In general, if there was any belief that any hardships encountered on the Internet were not the sole responsibility of the person on whom they were inflicted, there would be no such thing as Internet anonymity at this time.

Also this.

edited 9th Aug '14 8:57:55 AM by FalconPain

Yo, Midna, know exactly what you're saying, but let me tell you something:

If you don't say what gender and ethnicity you are on your Tumblr, and you don't go looking for trouble, none of that crowd will bother you. I have about 170 followers now, and I have zero information about my race, gender and sexual orientation on my profile. I am a Caucasian cishet woman, but I don't think that is important enough for me to share there, so I don't. Nobody said you gotta put all your personal shit on a card and present it to the supposed Tumblr Gestapo at regular intervals, so just don't. Just do what I do and reblog your shit you enjoy and browse your tags.

And like, fuck, unless you become massively popular, zero people will message you about anything, hate or no. Like I said, 170-ish followers, only one message that can be construed as anon hate, and that was vague as fuck.

Lighten up a little, man, you're being a tinge histrionic about it, and it's a gooberfest blogging platform. :P

edited 9th Aug '14 11:49:39 AM by MobileLeprechaun

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with credit card fraud (which is what I was under the impression we were talking about).

And did you seriously just comb through the forums to look for a two-year-old, totally unrelated conversation to link as part of your argument (one in which I was actually involved, no less)?

I didn't have to comb. I knew the quote, and it's relevant. (If harassment and sabotage aren't considered legitimate legal offenses online, what makes fraud different?)

I guess what I really need is a reason to believe that Paypal is a genuine entity that can be held financially liable for such things, and that they will be considered to be such by even the most extreme "lol internet" viewpoint.

If nothing else, they have very effective policies for protecting against fraud: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/technology/paypal-antifraud-measures-are-extreme-some-users-say.html?pagewanted=all

(the article may have a negative slant to it, but it at least demonstrates how its antifraud measures work)

I'm always afraid that I'll come back after a day of work/night of sleep to find that a friend had a meltdown when I wasn't around and now disavows everything we had in common, or I find that someone I had great respect for had died.

Unfortunately, today was not good for the latter...

That if something happens and I drop dead my online friends will never know.

Considering none of the people that know I'm on this forum, and thus could tell the others if something happened to me, speak a lick of english, it's far from an unfounded fear, methinks.

edited 12th Aug '14 12:27:14 PM by WackyPancake

It's a little less likely nowadays, but it was a fear of mine for a while.

@Midna: Depends on what part of Tumblr you're on. If you're thinking of joining the social justice tags, you're going to be shunned for being a white cis male.

However, if you want to become apart of the fandoms, as a fellow white cis male I've never had any problem in fandoms with people hating me just because of who I am. Some of 'em even think it's cool to have boys hanging around, as it seems Tumblr has a very loud female community (but there are guys on here, unlike Pinterest, where guys just gave up after five minutes).

Side note, please don't give fucknotvtropes traffic. They're just those butthurt All The Tropes jackasses.

... And now I am tempted to go look at fucknotvtropes.

Hey, the anti-TVT brigade produces some quality comedy sometimes. This Troper was a masterpiece of internet snark.

I also have the fear of dying (or committing suicide) and then everyone thinking I just forgot about them. It keeps me up at night a lot.

I'm also scared to death of doxxing. It's a permanent black mark that sends the entire Anonymous legion rallying after you to kill or slowly torture you and everyone you love. It's one of the most despicable crimes that humanity has ever had the pleasure to invent.

Wait, what?

IIRC doxxing is when all your personal information is released, usually as revenge for something. My worst internet fear is pretty much the same as everyone elses, that I'll die or something and none of my internet friends will know.