Friday, April 25, 2008

Latest Net Craze: Blogstalkers

Whether this is harmless mischief or a potential threat to this young lady's lifestyle isn't quite clear, but it does strike me as rather pernicious. The one doing the stalking is probably just consumed with envy or has some psychological issues.

Having said that, bloggers should know better than to splash every intimate detail of their lives on the web. There are a lot of crazies out there.
New York City blogger and Star Magazine editor-at-large Julia Allison says she has a stalker -- a blog stalker, that is.

"She follows every single thing I say or do on the Internet," Allison, 27, told ABCNEWS.com, adding that she knows the blogger's identity but is still debating what to do with it. "She has references about me that I didn't know existed. She is a veritable storehouse of Julia Allison history and trivia."

Allison, who spends much of her time blogging on such things as the baths she gives her dog and lunches with her grandmother, claims the blogger -- who uses Allison's real name, Julia Baugher, to write on the blog "Reblogging Julia," has "crossed the line."

"I get criticized a ton on the Internet, but I have never become frightened," Allison said. "This steps beyond the line of a harmless activity and is obsessive."

"I can take a lot of criticism, I have a thick skin," added Allison, who's frequently the butt of jokes on New York-area media blogs like Gawker.com and Valleywag.com.

The mystery blogger -- who has never approached Allison in real life -- has called Allison a liar, an insult the blogger takes most personally that has even led her parents to disown her, she told ABCNEWS.com. When approached for comment, the anonymous blogger did not respond to an e-mail sent to her blog from ABCNEWS.com.

"She's [screwing] with my personal life, and she's [screwing] with my professional life, said Allison, who said that she's "good natured about criticism" and can take more "than the average person."

Allison, who has not alerted the police, said she is undecided on how to proceed against the blogger and doesn't want to respond and encourage anymore disparaging posts. "Infuriated," Allison said she wished the blogger would be like any other gossip columnist, and provide a byline along with her posts.

"I don't believe that all press is good press," said Allison, who is often criticized for being an aggressive self-promoter. "This is scary."
Read the rest.

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