Recently, I made the mistake of mentioning someone’s name in my blog. That person found it. He didn’t like it.
It wasn’t law suit stuff. In fact, it was kid stuff. The entry was light hearted. And though it was not flattering, it was truly not meant to inflict harm.
It ended with me deleting the post because not only was the guy upset, but so was his mother. I haven’t seen these people since 1973. I did not even imagine they were alive, never mind having access to the world wide web. Mistake.
If you do not want your past to come back at you, don’t use real names of private citizens. They won’t get it that you are just skewering them as if they were celebrities. The irony is missed and they are not used to being used as subjects for public consumption.
Make fun of George Bush. Make fun of Rosie O’Donnell. But don’t use the real name of that girl you continued to fornicate even when she was puking. Or the guy who used to pick his nose and eat it. Even if you were on the receiving end of peer abuse, no need to exhume those entities from the grave of your past to have them come back at you. They don’t need it. You don’t need it.
Interesting lesson. Fundamentally, I dismissed someone as even being alive.
Now it is time to mention the REAL MONSTER who lived across the street from me and made my life so miserable I barely left the house for five years. His name was ________, and he was on average three years older than the kids he controlled on the block. One day...
7 comments:
Well, my business law professor said, "Truth is an absolute defense". If I read something unflattering about myself on a blog I'd just leave my opinion as a comment and that's it. I don't think you did anything wrong. Free speech.
Thanks, very good.
What about using thinly-veiled substitutes? A neighborhood freak from one's childhood could be, for instance, Schmed Schmonson instead of Ted Johnson. And if they irately email you -- just ask them, "Why do you assume it's you?" ;)
David K
Ouch! You know, it's hard to write about your own life and not mention those around you. I mean, if you say, "my girlfriend through high school," well, everyone in your high school will know who she was, even if you change her name. It's actually a good thing to discover this now, because when your memoir gets published, you may have some s'plaining to do.
I did hear of a case where it was obvious who was being discussed even though the name and location was changed. This case was controversial because this book was supposed to be fiction.
I guess it was a very good lesson and you meant no harm. Anything can be found on line these days in a Google Search. It also brings to mind another lesson "What goes around comes around".
...and if you treat people the right way in life, they won't have those things to repeat later.
I love pseudonyms myself...
Everyone is so into Googling themselves these days...
And Google cache, for example, makes it especially difficult to delete things forever once published...
Post a Comment