Absolute Chaos Discussion Boards
Fic Talk => General Discussion => Topic started by: RokofAges75 on April 14, 2008, 09:45:02 PM
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I'm a member of NEA, the National Education Association, and they send me a monthly magazine called NEA Today. This month's issue has an article called "The Whole World (Wide Web) is Watching," and it's about the possibility of losing your job because of what you post online - on your MySpace, Facebook, blog, personal website, whatever.
One of my college professors warned us about MySpace and similar sites - as a teacher, you really shouldn't have one, unless it's totally private, because students can and will find it and exploit the content if it's made available to them, and it can get you in trouble if you're posting pictures of yourself and other content that is inappropriate.
But along with MySpace, etc., the article also mentioned a band director who was fired because of his blog, which included "musings about sex, drugs, and depression" and an English teacher who lost her job after "composing and posting sexually explicit poetry" on her site. The latter especially made me think of fanfic and the sexually explicit material some of us write and post in our stories.
We think of fanfic as a harmless hobby, in most cases one that is personal and maybe even private to us - I know that I would never let my family read any of my fanfics, and my "real life" friends don't even know I write. But what if a colleague or a boss or, in the case of teachers, a student or parent somehow stumbled onto them?
Reading this article made me really glad I don't write under my own name. When I started posting my fanfics online, I was like 14, and I made up a pen name mostly to keep my friends from finding out, since they were Bsb fans at the time and I had kinda turned them on to fanfic. I was also just leary about weirdos online getting my personal info. I could never have thought ahead eight years to when I was a teacher... truthfully, I probably never thought I'd still be writing Backstreet Boys fanfic in my twenties LOL. But now I'm doubly glad I made that decision.
So a warning for those who do write under their own names... just be careful what you post that can be traced back to your name. I've heard that a lot of employers Google their employees' or potential employees' names, or look for them on MySpace, etc. You probably don't want your name to come up attached to some NC-17 story you wrote any more than you want them finding drunken, half-naked pictures of you on MySpace. Pen names are a good thing.
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Amen.
Pen names (or just fake names if you don't write, like me) are good.
Umm... I have nothing to really say about this other than I agree, lol.
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I always worry about that too.
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I never let my last name slip anywhere. Rose is a popular enough name, so that's good with me lol. Cause yeah I heard those job horror stories, so my blog only has my first name, and all that loveliness :D
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This is something that I've thought a lot about. A girl I know got kicked out of a major Private School here because someone found her Livejournal and showed it to the administration . It's really scary stuff... I had to twist Derek's arm to get a facebook, and he's still very weary about it because he's scared that he'll be discovered and his career will be destroyed. Not that he does anything really awful, but you never know.
The fanfic thing scares me a little, it's easy for people to find my AC profile. I go by Sakabelle on every single forum I visit, so if you google that... it comes up. Not that I use my online handle for anything work or school related, but it's still creepy to think about!
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That's why I try to stay as private as possible on the net.
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That's why I try to stay as private as possible on the net.
couldn't they trace you cause of Mel's Tree though? Not to give stalkers ideas lmao.
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yes, and that really unsettles me. It always has lol
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Aww poor Mare, I should genetically alter a groundhog so he can be your bodyguard lol.
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it's seriously one of my biggest fears that one of my kids will read my fanfics and make the connection that it's me. The one good thing for me anyway and not so much the boys, the kids really don't care about BSB so I think I'm safe. If I wrote Jonas Brothers fanfic i'd be in trouble though. lol
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LOL I know, the Jonas Brothers are so today's BSB. I heard their song on the disney channel as I surfed channels and it reminded me of Nick's Heart Without A Home. Man I told one person I write this stuff, if anyone else found out, I'd die lol. Especially once I graduate and get a real job.
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The kids love the Jonas Brothers lol it's so cute because it does remind me of the old BSB days. I haven't told a soul about my fanfic writing. I was so afriad that after Mel's came out people would make the connection. Hrmm five brothers? the youngest one is Nicky? but no one has...phew!
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Ahhh Jonas Brothers AHHH! I don't know if it's just me, but I'm so not "down" with the whole Disney on mainstream radio deal. Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana and JB are both on the radio non-stop whenever I turn it on, and it's so annoying. I've seen all the kids that are crazy about them, and I think it's great and all...but AHHHH.
It creeps me out to no end when 40+ year old women call up the stations and gush about how cute they think ___ Jonas is! OMG!!!
*gag*
Those women are old enough to be their mothers!! Not okay. They're definitely like the BSB of yesteryear...b ut I find them more annoying because they look and sound way younger than the BSB and 'N Sync did. And what is up with that one song of theirs sounding almost exactly like Nick's song??
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lmao.. I was talking to two girls that I know (they're around age 13/14) and trying to explain to them about the celebrities of the past. I told them that their obsession with Fall Out Boy is like how I was with BSB, and one of the girls said "So does that mean Miley Cyrus is like the new Britney Spears?" LOL, I sure hope she's not!
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Well Nick and Justin were young when it started, so it's sorta the same. Or like Aaron Carter. I just hope these kids can handle it.
I'm not big on Miley Cyrus, but a friend of mine likes country so we had it on that station since he was driving... and a song by Miley and her dad came on. It wasn't bad. At least she has actual talent, which is more than I can say for 99% of the disney music bunch.
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Rose, I agree on the part about Justin and Nick but, for whatever reason, the Jonas Brothers just seem way younger than those two did back in '97. *shrugs* I guess it's their time now...
And, to not hijack this thread further, reading Julie's original post totally made me go back and check everywhere that I've used starbeamz2...u nfortunately, in EVERYTHING. Luckily, I've never used my last name anywhere but on facebook and that's a hyper, super secret profile...or as secretive as a facebook profile can get
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It goes in circles I guess. I'm still in shock NKOTB are back on the scene lol.
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You know, I think nicksgal is a pretty safe handle. lol
But yeah, my Facebook is totally private because I don't want my unfortunatenes s found out. I even detag pictures I don't support. lmao
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In 2004 I lost my job because of something I had posted on LJ. It wasn't even a matter of someone finding me but my boss came across the LJ of a colleague and when he was checking out her friends list my most recent post came up.
I now never post anything that isn't friends only.
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How many Kagoma do people know? Plus I have three online names just in case for different sites. If you used your name as a screen name, then your a pretty brave person.
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In 2004 I lost my job because of something I had posted on LJ. It wasn't even a matter of someone finding me but my boss came across the LJ of a colleague and when he was checking out her friends list my most recent post came up.
I now never post anything that isn't friends only.
Wow... that is just scary. It doesn't seem fair, but at least in the case of teachers, it makes sense. If students would ever come across something inappropriate connected to you online, you'd have no chance of them still respecting you, and it's hard to manage a class that doesn't respect you.
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When I was student teaching we all got read the riot act about My Space because like two student teachers got kicked out of the program for innapropriate content on their My Space profile. Apparently a parent came across it. I've since set mine to private. It's kind of scary when 3rd and 4th graders in my district have My Spaces now. (Illegally of course but they have them) Not that I have anything bad on mine. I hardly use it. But there are some pictures of me taken while I was at a bar with a drink in my hand, so that's not exactly something I want my students to see. I also just quite frankly don't want them to be able to glimpse into my personal life like that. I think its innapropriate.
As far as the fan fiction goes, I've googled myself a while back and actually found some stories *grimaces* Old ones from like Bauhaus or something. I have since removed them. As someone pointed out, I don't think many of my students are reading BSB fan fic anyway and the only person who really calls me Mellz Bellz is my sister. So, I think I'm pretty safe. I try not to advertise to many people where exactly I teach either. If I was to write a novel though down the road, I think I'd use a pen name just so that it couldn't be tied back to me and impact my teaching career.
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^ It is frightening how many 9-year-olds have MySpaces! One of my kids asked if she could get on MySpace at school once, so out of curiosity, I looked up some of my kids on there, and I was SHOCKED at how many of them I found. Almost all of them had private profiles at least, but a lot of them used their first and last name as their username!! Dumb!!! Where are the parents??
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Either I'm not important, or I've never done anything wrong, but I've googled myself and I can't find me... :-\
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Wow... that is just scary. It doesn't seem fair, but at least in the case of teachers, it makes sense. If students would ever come across something inappropriate connected to you online, you'd have no chance of them still respecting you, and it's hard to manage a class that doesn't respect you.
I was a talk radio producer... so the public had no respect for me anyway
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I was a talk radio producer... so the public had no respect for me anyway
Aww LOL.
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I was a talk radio producer... so the public had no respect for me anyway
I respect you. :)
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I just googled my name out of curiosity. I already knew this, but there was an actress with my same name. So when you google my name, she's the one that comes up, not me. :)
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Wow... I wonder if that implies PPT's. I'm still in my teens, and I have a myspace and post stuff on there... well, nothing explicit of course, but now it makes me wonder if I have to be careful with who I befriend and all that jazz. I actually never really did think about that until this was mentioned. I definitely wouldn't want to lose my job over stuff about myspace or whatever. And as for the fanfic writing... I'm completely anonymous here, and I like to stay that way. Personal info is meant to be kept personal... and it's fun to kinda be myself, but kinda not be myself if that makes any sense, lol. I like remaining "mysterious" on forums and whatnot, but at the same time, just chat normally like I do. ;D Thanks for the heads up Mare!!
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I looked up my name, and, apparently, I'm a really "sexy" model. I even have my own website lol Although, I'm a little on the really skinny side, and I should probably eat more because those pics make me look like Skeletor :D
Actually, there was one thing that popped up that really was me, and that had to do with me being on the School Board for my old school district. I think I'm good :)
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I have a pretty unique last name, but when I googled myself I only got sports scores from like colleges with people with my last name. Interesting to note though I found a guy who has my last name who ironically enough is CEO of Hilton hotels.
Make your own Paris joke LOL
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I googled my name and got ... me. Alumni pages from my high school and college, my facebook, my livejournal (both private), me on a family tree, and the other that was non-me related was someone from the 1800's who had the same name as me who died.
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How can your Facebook come up if it's private?
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^ It is frightening how many 9-year-olds have MySpaces! One of my kids asked if she could get on MySpace at school once, so out of curiosity, I looked up some of my kids on there, and I was SHOCKED at how many of them I found. Almost all of them had private profiles at least, but a lot of them used their first and last name as their username!! Dumb!!! Where are the parents??
Oh yeah... I remember when you did that. You and I were IMing at the time, I think.
That was pretty bad how many you found... and how easily you found them!
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When I google me, I get random people from California that I'm not related to, lol.
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Hehe, it's fun to google yourself. No wonder Nick likes the site so much!!
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^Well, when one googles "Nick Carter," plenty comes up on the "Nick" in question. lol
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How can your Facebook come up if it's private?
When you click the link it just has what shows when you search for people. Just my name, and like 'message me, add to friends, etc' but they can't access my profile.
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^I'm sorry to hear that. :( I wonder if mine shows up, since it's so efectively hidden....
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I googled myself out of curousity and Mel's Tree popped up as well as my schools etc but one thing that made me teeny a little lol Someone who was reviewing a Time to Let Go by Lurlene McDaniel at the end my book was listed as most similar to it. So now i'm curious, does this book suck or is it good? lol
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I googled myself out of curousity and Mel's Tree popped up as well as my schools etc but one thing that made me teeny a little lol Someone who was reviewing a Time to Let Go by Lurlene McDaniel at the end my book was listed as most similar to it. So now i'm curious, does this book suck or is it good? lol
ooh, still that's kind of fun. that would make me giggle.
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it did lol
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I googled myself out of curousity and Mel's Tree popped up as well as my schools etc but one thing that made me teeny a little lol Someone who was reviewing a Time to Let Go by Lurlene McDaniel at the end my book was listed as most similar to it. So now i'm curious, does this book suck or is it good? lol
Lurlene McDaniel is my hero LOL. I love her books. "A Time to Let Go" isn't my favorite, but it doesn't suck. It's actually a sequel to a book about a girl whose sister gets into a bad car accident and is in a coma for awhile before they decide to turn off life support... so the sequel is about the girl going on with her life and dealing with her sister's death. The specifics are a lot different, but you can see how it could be considered similar.
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ooh okay lol well...cool :) yay!!
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^Well, when one googles "Nick Carter," plenty comes up on the "Nick" in question. lol
Haha, I wonder if Nick has ever... "google'd" himself. ???
Okay, I will not take this thread over with my nonsense talk!! *frolics to made up thread* Come hither Dee, we shall hijack the "whatever" thread.