Our multimedia editor, Michael Paull constantly warns us of the dangers of the internet and of our vulnerability to invasions of privacy.
The internet also allows anyone to write about whatever, or whomever, they please with the assumption of anonymity.
I was completely blown away when a buddy of mine told me about a blog he had found, written by a kid who calls himself Danny Macintosh.
Basically his one-man campaign is centered around getting me ousted at the university and bringing ill-fortune to The Lantern. The clear irony is that by the time he would get anywhere with this, I will have long since graduated, had kids and grandkids and my senility will have removed any lasting memory of this paper.
All I know is that the kid needs a hug. He’s not going to get it from me – it would probably need to be from a family member or one of those funny trained monkeys you see on TV.
It turns out that he has been at this all month, picking through my columns and writing equal-length responses to every sentence.
All this for a kid who writes columns about Australian rappers and buffer seats.
Macintosh hangs on to my every word. Like this. And this one too.
This is a beautiful thing. Naturally, my ego goes through the roof knowing that another human is obsessed with me. I should be a blip on anyone’s radar.
I left a comment on the blog: “This is incredible. I’ve been laughing on-and-off for the last five minutes. Please, Danny Macintosh, send me an e-mail … I want to know who you are and why you would create a blog about me. Funny stuff.”
Of course in our e-mail exchanges I would have insisted he refer to me as Graham Linux. But there was no response from Macintosh.
Besides wanting to know who to issue the restraining order to, I just wanted to understand his motivation. It’s not like I’d ever want to meet him in person, because he’d probably try to steal a lock of my hair.
Before he could get a chance to e-mail me – he would have done it anonymously anyway, because something about an anonymous blogger just screams “coward” – a fellow editor informed me she had found out Danny Macintosh’s true identity.
His real name is Dan McKeever, and the poor kid had written about both me and the blog on his LiveJournal. Apparently all it took was Googling the two, to find his LiveJournal.
From there all it took on my part was two minutes of Internet sluthing to find out he writes for The Sentinel, and a search on OSU’s directory to know he’s a journalism major.
I didn’t read his LiveJournal, and I didn’t take it any further, because that would have made me worse than him. Just by giving him a few minutes of time and writing this column I had gotten a taste of what it’s like to be obsessive on the Internet, like “Danny Macintosh,” for a little while. I didn’t like it.
Another thing Michael Paull taught me about the Internet is that sites can never be fully deleted.
Little bits and pieces of McKeever’s blog will be on the Internet forever. Thanks to caches and Google archiving.
Because of how the journalism program is structured at OSU, the real-life McKeever will one day have to work at The Lantern with a staff full of editors who know he lambasted their paper on the Internet.
End copy.
Graham Beckwith is The Lantern’s Arts & Life editor. He can be reached at [email protected].
