the internet is creepy, it's just a fact

I don't have much to say or do right now. Yesterday, I dropped off Megan in D.C. to fly back to Michigan, tomorrow I pick up David in Norfolk, flying back into Michigan. It's strange to be here all alone and not have work or any real obligations...

I found this video on feministing, and felt I should share it. There are many great women slam poets out there (if you look at my myspace page, I have a few videos up), but this one almost moved me to tears. It's amazing.
"What We Deserve" by Sonya "The Drama" Boom Renee
What We Deserve

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Also, I was reading some of the feminist blogs I check on and one (feministe) was talking about this group Anonymous and attacks to take down feminist blogs. It's kinda crazy. No, not kinda. Really crazy. This has been a topic that has been gaining more and more attention because commenters are making violent threats towards bloggers. It's crazy and incredibly creepy. The sad thing is, there seems to be a lot of grey legal area in dealing with internet harassment. I almost feel like a lot of people are afraid to contact police or any authority that could help because they don't know if they can (or will) do anything about it. I don't know if I'm alone in making this connection, but doesn't that feel like when a woman is raped, assaulted, etc., and they're afraid of reporting it because they think they won't be taken seriously or they'll be blamed for it? I think it's very, very similar line of thinking. If they report it, will anyone take them seriously? Will they be blamed for it? etc. etc.
It's incredibly sad that the internet empowers people to feel like they can make comments/threats about anyone involved in putting themselves and their thoughts on the internet. This crosses all lines, it seems-- whether you're non-white, gay, female, etc, but, sadly, it seems to be a lot more personal and threatening when it comes to women, especially feminists. It seems a lot more personal and vicious. They joke about raping, mutilating and killing these women. All for what? Because they expressed their opinion?! That is... wow. Even though it's only on the internet, I still think these women are incredibly brave for putting up with these comments and harrassment and not stopping what they're doing. I mean, think about if you had someone (or more than one person) constantly telling you some pretty messed up stuff about what a horrible person you are or how they want to torture or kill you. What would you do?

Anyway, here's an interesting video on harassment of youtube vloggers.


And this is the post I was reading yesterday: What Do We Do About Online Harassment?

Also, feministe had a lot on AutoAdmit (a forum that seems to be dominated by dudebros, who are supposed to be lawyers of some kind), which is a different kind of harassment than what I was talking about earlier (as in not directed towards bloggers and their blogs, but women they know in gereal--colleagues of theirs. fantastic!), but it's still about sexalized, violent comments towards women. Here's one post that I like that talks about AutoAdmit, internet harassment and why it makes femnism still necessary, but there are many others about AutoAdmit.
They mention Kathy Sierra in the post I directly link to. It seems to be one of the most publicized cases, because she ended up cancelling a public appearance due to the threats. Here's the wikipedia page for her, an interview with her, and another article about the attack on her

Again, what would you do if this was happening to you? Or to someone you cared about? Would you quit? Would you report it? Would you keep blogging and ignore it? I'm very interested, let me know.