Cyberstalking -- or the Ultimate Form of Feedback
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| Title: | Cyberstalking -- or the Ultimate Form of Feedback |
| Creator: | Michela Ecks |
| Date(s): | very early 2000s, perhaps 2001 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | multifandom |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | online here, via Wayback, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Cyberstalking—or the Ultimate Form of Feedback is an essay posted at Writers University. It is by Michela Ecks.
"An Article on how to deal with cyberstalking in fan fiction and fandom" and contains much personal description of the author's experiences.
Excerpts
I found myself in a police station trying to file a complaint against some one for cyberstalking… and found myself in tears because there was no way to gain relief, surcease from lies and repeated contact after asking for it not to happen…
So this month’s column is on cyberstalking, the ultimate form of negative feedback… and the scariest kind… Leading to massive ellipse abuse on my part as I try to figure out why and how.
For those of you who are otherwise unaware, I will fill you in on some of the details in hopes that maybe, just maybe, this column will help one or two people going through the same situation to realize that they are not alone and that this is scary shit.
I hear more and more stories of this happening in fandom… fans crossing the lines from fans and readers and writers to cyberstalkers. And this scares me beyond words. It terrifies me and I know that this type of behavior is beginning to create a situation where there has been an exodus in some fandoms to avoid the perpetuators. (And even if you leave that fandom, the harassment and lies continues.)
So having babbled this far into this column, why is this a column about feedback? Because stalking is an obsessive, scary form of feedback. You say the wrong thing on a mailing lists, you align yourself with the wrong people in a fandom, you write a story with the wrong pairing or sexuality, and these people will send you feedback on how wrong you are and how much they hate you and how they will get you back and in some cases, send you repeated death threats. I know those as I’ve seen a few people in the slash fandom receive them. It’s scary feedback and it is a stream of feedback that never lets up. It goes on for months.