Rachel Kramer Bussel

"Avoiding the Emily Gould Effect" at Arse Electronika 2008

melissa:

rkb:

Kinda weird to see my name namechecked in this (mostly cause I am just hearing about it now) but check it out, it’s happening at Arse Elektronica 2008, from Viviane’s Sex Carnival:

Avoiding the Emily Gould Effect
Susan Mernit & Viviane

“Oversharing”, sex blogging & erotica. How to successfully manage your online identity, whether you’re pseudonymous or right out there. As the legions of bloggers sharing personal stories of sexuality, erotica and adventure grow and as sex & relationship blogs become big business we hear both stories of bloggers who regret what they’ve shared (Emily Gould) and survived a tawdry outing (Zoe Margolis), and those who’ve parlayed sex & erotica blogging into far more mainstream careers (Rachel Kramer Bussel, Melissa Gira Grant, Violet Blue. How do you manage your online persona so you’re in control of your story? What to do if you get outed? Join Viviane, leader of The Sex Carnival, and Susan Mernit, sex and relationships contributing editor at Blogher, in a discussion of sharing, oversharing, and the best ways to put it out there. A hand out of tips for beginners and getting started will also be provided.

Full schedule here.

Echoing RKB: also strange to be namechecked here, just now hearing about it, stranger still to be a counterpoint to “the Gould effect.” Or not?

I will ponder this more this weekend; wish I could be there for the panel. Speaking just for me, I’ll say that I have no idea if I’ve successfully navigated this, or if I want to. It’s always a struggle, always a question. How much to say? What format to say it? Who’s reading?

Either way, it’s not so easy. You lose a lot by not being anonymous, and maybe the only thing you gain is the freedom from worrying about being outed. I’m with Melissa in that I’m not sure what Emily wrote is something I necessarily want to avoid. I’m still figuring all this out, and probably always will be. I don’t know that you can ever fully manage your online persona (or offline), because at the end of the day, whether you say everything or nothing or opt for somewhere in between, there will always be haters, there will always be misinterpretations, there will always be someone who’s uncomfortable with what you’ve said.

I followed the response to Emily’s piece very closely, and am curious to read her book. I think a lot of the reactions started out, “Well, I’d never write about ___.” As if they were being asked! And yet, that is a natural way to approach personal writing. Would I go there - why or why not?

I hope there’ll be a transcript of this available. And I also hope the word “overshare” gets retired in 2009.