Anonymity Syndrome

People seem to be somehow unaware that their public musings are, well, public. I don’t know that the experts have a name for this disorder. Let’s call it Anonymity Syndrome.

I will share with you the tragic tale of one victim of this dreaded disease which I learned about through the web site of Houston television station KHOU. One day Jacki was living her normal life as a self-described “uninteresting teacher.”

After a hard day grading ungrammatical 9th grade essays, she would come home, feed the dog and fire up the computer. With complete faith in her lack of an audience, Jacki would type out reviews of The Gilmore Girls and Days of Our Lives. She worried that her students might watch The Secret Life of an American Teenager and get the idea that teenage pregnancy was cool. Jacki wasn’t the type of person who was featured in the news. World events happened somewhere else. She watched them on television.

Then, in September 2008, Hurricane Ike changed everything. No, not in the way you might think. Jacki was spared by the worst of the weather. Her house was not damaged, she had running water and power. She didn’t even have to go to work because her school was closed, but she was still getting a paycheck. In all, she had fared quite well.

She should have heeded the warning signs. Extra leisure time puts a person at increased risk of Anonymity Syndrome. Jacki was on the edge of a national story with nothing to do but blog. And blog she did.

“Life is great after a hurricane,” she wrote, “when nothing really happened to your house!”

Emboldened by her sense of solitude—she couldn’t even get her best friends to read her reviews of episodes of Big Brother—she went on to describe how she went around town collecting MRE’s, military rations distributed to hurricane victims who were without power and food.

“I think that I am falling in love with MREs,” she wrote, “They are pretty darn good… It’s so cool that you put a little bit of water in the bag with the food and in about a minute, there is hot food. This is great. I don’t have school and I’m getting free food!”

What Jacki hadn’t thought about before she hit “preview” and “post” was that people were going to read it. It would only take a few people with copy and paste functionality on their computers to share her newfound joy in free MREs with an audience she never imagined—people who did not know her, love her or call her a friend.

Some of those people, Texas residents who were an even bigger part of the Hurricane Ike story, did not take Jacki’s narrative in quite the way she intended.

Hundreds of comments started to appear. Some were threatening, harassing, unrepeatable. They threatened to turn her into authorities.

“How do you live with yourself?”

“Hope you choke on those MRE’s.”

Her blog became the stuff of local legend, and the “uninteresting teacher” was suddenly getting calls from reporters asking her to explain herself. She was a story on the television news.

When the blog disappeared, Jacki’s anonymity did not return. The angry posters merely moved to the khou.com story about her site and plotted to send letters of complaint to her employer by the hundreds. Jacki’s online hobby had come crashing into her real life with the force of a hurricane.

The story has a few lessons for us. First, if you’re lucky enough to be spared by a tragedy, and you’re surrounded by those who are not—keep it to yourself. Second, if you forget the first rule, at least keep your crowing to a respectably small circle of friends. Third, if you can’t manage to follow the second rule at least do not literally broadcast your good fortune. Fourth, don’t take food intended for people who just lost their homes and brag about it on a blog about your uninteresting life. Actually, that one should probably go first.

Another example of Anonymity Syndrome was reported by MyFox yesterday. Steven loved to chat with friends on Myspace and blog about his adventures. One of his adventures involved stealing two monkeys from a wildlife compound. The Myspace page was set to public. The authorities investigating the case, being part of the public, found it fairly easy to track him down.

We've said it here a number of times, but it bears repeating. If you're doing something that is not entirely ethical or legal, it behooves to keep it to yourself.

Welcome Back, Geraldo

A special brand of cartoonish accident is the one that begins with someone saying, “Here, I’ll show you...”

Geraldo Rivera took time away from finding Al Capone's vault to travel into the path of a hurricane. "Look, I want to show you something," he says.



As he predicted, he has become a star on Schadenfreude Central, Youtube.

Sweeping it Under the Rug: CNN Style.

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig was so humiliated by his conviction for disorderly conduct in a Minnesota bathroom stall that he is fighting to keep the story alive forever.

His attorney was in court yesterday arguing to have his disorderly conduct conviction thrown out for lack of evidence during arguments Wednesday before the state Court of Appeals.

Now I would never be caught taking glee at an anti-gay rights politician's ironic legal woes. I'll leave that to a You Tube artist:




And to Roy Zimmerman, seen here performing "Larry Craig is Completely Heterosexual."



And the Capitol Steps.




And... well, you get the idea.

Dirty Laundry

Here is the Schadenfreude story of the day, or more accurately, the Schadenfreude story of two days ago, because that is how cutting edge we are around here.

The UPI, which apparently spends as much time surfing random blogs on the Internet as you do, reports that the operator of a Web site that publishes photos of people making fools of themselves gave himself the same treatment after admitting drunk driving in Arizona.

Now I have visited the "Dirty" web site, and I'm having a little trouble entirely understanding its theme. Guess it's an Arizona thing. But what I gather is that the public nominates "douchebags" for bad, off color, or generally embarassing behavior and administer a virtual public lashing by their peers in the comments section. Recent postings include a guy who decorated his car with messages referring to his love of women's breasts, a woman with a Michael Phelps racing sperm t-shirt, and a pregnant Hooters waitress.

The UPI reports that Hooman Karamian, 29, admitted publicly for the first time that he is the operator of The Dirty, under his nom de plume (nom de keyboard?) Nik Richie.

"It's still hard for me to comprehend what happened yesterday," he told reporters. "People are going to the comments and shredding me and it's weird to see what it's like, but it helps me understand the site better and it's only going to help the growth of the site."

When someone who is known for revelling in other's stupidity is caught doing something stupid, there is very little chance it will fail to attract attention. And don't think I wasn't aware of this when writing Schadenfreude, Baby.

"I have to admit," I wrote, "I have a vague fear that I'll be involved in a terrible accident involving a kitchen appliance and the newspaper report will jump on the fabulous irony of finding Schadenfreude in the misfortune of the Schadenfreude author."

Of course it didn't stop me from reveling a bit in the legal troubles of Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis (it couldn't happen to a nicer guy), or in the rancorous divorce of one of the co-authors of The Rules. The irony is just too inviting.

But there's something a little odd about this "Dirty" story. Is someone really hoisted by their own petard if they do the hoisting themselves and then send out a press release about it? Hmmm.


Oh gee, did I forget to post the URL of the "Dirty" web site? How did that happen?

The Curse of the Open Mic

When I worked in radio we had a maxim. You should treat every microphone as though it were on. That didn't prevent one of my co-workers from accidentally airing a personal conversation with his girlfriend after he failed to turn off the telephone link after a call in show.

There are few political faux pas that inspire such glee-- to the other political party-- as the open mic gaffe. This is when a nomally polished public speaker is caught in an unguarded moment on a microphone he or she did not know was on.

Former John McCain advisor Mike Murphy and former Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan have joined the ranks of public figures whose "off camera" views and speaking styles were accidentally exposed. If they are feeling a bit red faced about the whole thing, they can take comfort in the fact that the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan, himself was caught in a hot mic scandlette back in the 1980s.

(Before making a radio broadcast at the height of the Cold War in 1984, he quipped: "I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever - the bombing begins in five minutes.'" the joke went out over the airwaves. The Russians weren't amused.)

Open mic embarasments almost always inspire mirth because they unintentionally reveal the differences between people's public and private personas. Democrats have had extra reasons to wallow in Schadenfreude because this conversation, immortalized for the next day or two on Youtube, reveals two talking heads doubting the credentials of Vice Presidental candidate Sarah Palin.




Of course this would be most ripe for humor of one of the speakers were found to contradict their earlier public statements. For example if Peggy Noonan had written an article just that morning in the Wall Street Journal that called Palin "powerful" and "transformative."

She did? Great! Of course, you have to take her praise of Palin a bit out of context to create the most effective and Schadenfreude-worthy flipflop. The gist of her article was that the Palin choice might work or might backfire.

"The Sarah Palin choice is really going to work, or really not going to work," Noonan wrote. "It's not going to be a little successful or a little not; it's not going to be a wash. She is either going to be magic or one of history's accidents. She is either going to be brilliant and groundbreaking, or will soon be the target of
unattributed quotes by bitter staffers shifting blame in all 'The Making of the President 2008' books."

With a little tweaking, like they do with the film reviews, that paragraph can be pared down to "The Sarah Palin choice is... brilliant and groundbreaking."

There's the pay off! Let's not let the text of the article get in the way of a great story.

Of course the Democrats have had their open mic moments too. Do you remember this summer when Jesse Jackson was caught whispering a threat to "cut Obama's nuts off" before a televised interview with Fox News?



Back in 2001, The BBC did an entire feature on the curse of the open mic. But drawing attention to gaffes by Tony Blair (in 1993) and by George W. Bush (in 2000) didn't prevent them having a converstion in a room full of every imaginable type of recording equipment at the G8 summit in 2006. The infamous "Yo Blair" conversation revealed the U.S. president's cowboy speaking style and his in depth analysis "China is big and so is Russia." Blair, for his part, refers to international economics as "this trade thingy."



With the increased presence of 24 hour television news media, call in talk shows, and video on cell phones, expect more delightful unguarded moments in the future.

Male Lesbians and Your Good Name

It's just part of being human to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about your public image. This concern manifests itself in different ways-- you seek a more prestigous job title, for example, when you might be just as happy in the mail room if it carried more clout. You try to look presentable. You hope to avoid being the topic of nasty gossip. Having your name dragged through the mud is a great misfortune. (Usually compounded by the fact that we overestimate how much attention other people pay to us)

There are people whose names become sullied by their own actions, as when Monica Lewinsky's last name is used synonymously with a certain sexual act. (Or non-sexual act if you subscribe to Bill Clinton's definitions) After George H.W. Bush had an embarassing bout with illness during a 1992 state visit to Japan, the Japanese coined a new term for a humiliating episode of public vomiting, bushusuru, which translates loosely as “pulling a Bush.”

But then there are those people whose names give them grief through no fault of their own. Adolf Hittler, for example, a perfectly nice, non-genocidal, Austrian tour guide who had the misfortune to be named before that other guy- the one with only one "t" in his last name-- became completely infamous.

Recently Dimitris Lambrou, a proud Lesbian, decided to go to court in an attempt to prevent gay women from appropriating the name of his people-- residents of the Island of Lesbos. Lambrou filed suit on April 10 against an orgainzation called the Greek Gay and Lesbian Union.

"It's not an aggressive act against gay women," Lambrou told reporters. "Let them visit Lesbos and get married and whatever they like. We just want them to remove the word lesbian from their title... My sister can't say she's a Lesbian. Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos."

Frankly, the ship seems to have pretty much sailed on that one. Language has a life of its own. Once an association is there, it's too late for the lawsuits. Hormel, the makers of Spam (registered trademark) luncheon meat, have had to accept that their product's name is synonymous with unsolicited bulk e-mail.

Less lucky were the descendents of French physician Joseph Guillotin who advocated for more humane capital punishment during the French Revolution. Guillotin didn't invent the instrument of death, but became so closely associated with it that the device came to be known as a guillotin. After Guillotin's death, his children petitioned the French government to change the name of the blade, but it was too late. Their petition was not granted, and they changed their own name instead.

So my message to the proud Lesbian, Mr. Lambrou, is this: They're here, they're queer, they're called lesbians, get used to it. (Those of you who are still smarting by the "loss" of gay meaning happy to the English language-- that goes for you too.)

Post Script: For a vintage recording oddity of the other Lesbian variety, visit WFMU's fabulous Beware of the Blog.

Schadenfreude History: Geraldo and Al Capone's Vault

This is the twenty-second anniversary of a moment Geraldo Rivera would just as soon forget, but no one will let him. We're certainly not going to let him off the hook here. His overhyped television special "The Opening of Al Capone's Vault" has its own chapter in the book Schadenfreude, Baby!

Geraldo's penchant for showboating and putting his own feelings into a story earned him many critics, even before he opened Al Capone's vault on live TV to find nothing but a couple of empty bottles. That's why his public embarassment was the cause of so much Schadenfreude.

And because Geraldo's style seems to have paved the way for a whole breed of opinionated reporters who now dominate the airways, "The Opening of Al Capone's Vault" has become a symbol of self-aggradizing, celebrity journalism with nothing at its center.

In the following YouTube clip, Geraldo took time away from being hit in the face with with chairs and drawing lines in the sand in Iraq to laugh along with his detractors. (Taking the advice of psychoanalyst Claudie Sies).

And let's give Geraldo his props. As Neil Steinberg wrote in his book Complete and Utter Failure, “the definition of real failure is the presence of true consequences—a fall, as opposed to a neglect to climb.” In other words, you have to get off your butt and try something before you can fail spectacularly at it. Could you get yourself a prime time TV show and a big enough audience for an embarassment of this size? I didn't think so.

The Law of Unexpected Consequences

Well it's tax day, and so it seems appropriate to share a tax related Schadenfreude story courtesty of The Real Estate Journal.

It begins with a clever team of lawyers (I assume it was a team, the original article doesn't say) representing Marilyn Monroe, LLC, who decided they could save Marilyn Monroe's estate a lot of money by convincing California tax authorities that the movie star had been a resident of New York. As a New Yorker, she would not have to pay taxes on the estate in California.

That saved them a couple of bob. There's just one thing: California allows "rights of publicity" after death. That means that even if a person is dead, you still need to license her image on posters, photographic prints, T-shirts, mugs, socks, whimsical clocks... And those rights of publicity have been netting Marilyn Monroe LLC more than $30 million. New York, on the other hand, says the dearly departed have no "rights of publicity."

A court has now ruled that if Monroe was a New Yorker, as her legal team successfully proved, there's no longer a right of publicity for Marilyn Monroe, and photographers who own Monroe photographs shouldn't have to pay her estate. Photographers who have been paying fees since the starlet died are looking for refunds. But hey, they were pretty clever about that estate tax, weren't they?