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WHAT ARE WEBLOGS?
There are between 2 to 3 million weblogs, call them or soap-boxes or personal publishing systems, now in the 'blogosphere'.
The world's net users have taken to the idea of self-publishing with all same enthusiasm they have found for web surfing since the mid 90s.
Each week, J.J. King reviews the most popular topics these bloggers are linking to and writing about, bringing their interests together into a
single, easily-accessible snapshot - the World According To Blog
... to bring you a nightmare. In the week's World According To Blog, one story stands out above the rest. Just why should a polymorphously peverse writer of erotic 'fan fiction' be receiving a visit from the U.S. Secret Service?
Since publishing this article on 29th Oct we received numerous emails about it, including one from blogger Annie Sewell-Jennings herself. Read her email in full here.
Bloggers were understandably concerned this week about the experiences of Annie Sewell-Jennings, of Annie's LiveJournal.
The popular, jocular blogger recieved a visit from two US Secret Service men, claiming that the satirical comments he (we think he's a he) posted about George W. Bush after his appearance in a Presidential Debate were capable of being construed as a 'threat to the President's life.'
WATB has said quite enough about the McCarthyist-plus tendencies of modern America, so we'll shut up for a change and let the bloggers speak for themselves.
'What happened to me CAN happen to you,' Annie explains to thousands of quivering self-publishers. 'Be CAREFUL about what [you] say on the Internet, because someone IS reading it and it CAN come back and bite you on the ass.
And as nice as the Sekkrit Service dudes were (and honestly, they WERE very nice, we even gave them coffee and shit, and they laughed with us and were generally very cool about the entire situation), you don't want them coming to your house. It's just not very fun.'
If you will only read Annie's post until the end, you will notice what is at first sight a rather incongruous comment:
Now, with all that said, I really, REALLY need some goddamn porn today. GAAAAAH.
What explains this sudden salacious turn, in what might seem rather non-conducive circumstances? Well, Annie, dear Danger-To-Dubya Annie, is not, as you might suppose, one of those political bloggers the Washington Post has been giving awards to but, in fact, a particpant in a subculture-of-a-subculture known as Fan Fiction.
WATB is not sure if this sub-sub-culture really has a name, but for the sake of exigence we'll call it erotic Fan Fiction. Apologies to those involved.
To understand what erotic Fan Fiction is, you have first to imagine a world in which thousands, thousands and thousands, thousands and thousands and thousands of people, get kicks out of imagining, and then writing up, scenarios involving their favourite, subject-to-copyright characters.
Then imagine a smaller subset of those IP-infringing fantasists getting erotic, kinky kicks out doing the same thing, only with erotic, kinky scenarios.
The Department of Dreamland Security
What you've imagined yourself there, WATB reader, is good ol' reality.
Annie SJ offers a number of horny, porny 'Potterfic' numbers on his/her LiveJournal and a few Buffy The Vampire Slayer-based ones to boot.
For example:
A teasing growl, and then Spike pulls Buffy back onto the bed, kicking the carton of records out of her hands with one bare foot. She sighs, so lovely in nothing but her jersey shorts and a sports bra, and Spike lets his hands prowl over her breasts. Tweaks an alert nipple with his fingers, ah, she feels so good. Feels her wriggling against him, a kiss landing on his jaw like a butterfly lighting across a leaf.
That, in short, is the kind of 'Goddamn porn' Annie is referring to'. It is not, mark you, what got him paid a visit by the Department Of Homeland Security. You may think that a surprising oversight. But there's a good reason the info-Fuehrer is turning a blind eye to its copyright-infringing, polymorphously perverse, porn-obsessed populace.
There's a reason it allows them to create and/or whack off to fantasies about Buffy, Harry, Captain Picard, Starsky, Hutch, or the Wombles of goddamn Wimbledon. Because as long as they're firmly ensconsed in their own dreamworld, they're not paying too much attention to the dark and delirious dreamworld taking shape around them.
Now Annnie Sewell-Jennings knows now what happens when you wake up. Be careful what you say on the Internet; the nice Secret Service men might be coming for you.
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