this bathysphere is perplexing!

[sab]

Hey, LOTRips people? There's this thread over on the seekrit_pics community talking about smackin' down some troll or mole or whatnot, and I'm perplexed. Is it me? Looks around...

I'm so confused. I totally friended the community; I'm not a part of LOTRips fandom or even LOTR fandom (while being a fangirl in my own right -- and proud of it! -- off in my own other fandoms), but I was certainly enjoying watching the discussion and the fallout over there. I had no idea that my friending the community would create such draaaaamaa.

I didn't, um, I didn't friend the community to see Jason's pictures -- dude, I am IN the pictures, hell, I *took* some of the pictures; I just friended y'all on a lark when y'all started friending *me.*

Essentially, what happened was this: Jason, who is in no way internet-naive, but who does tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and has general faith in the goodness of humanity, uploaded the pictures to his gallery (which was alive and kicking long before y'all found it) and left it unlocked, figuring he'd give the URL out to his friends and family and let us enjoy his photography.

A good question might be, how did fandom discover his gallery in the first place? A reasonable answer might be: well, it's the internet, things are bound to get out eventually.

So, badda-bing. Some fan found the pictures, and the horse was out of the barn. Jason, still having general faith in the goodness of humanity, opted to password-protect some of the albums, while keeping others open, fully aware that fans were visiting and enjoying them, and figuring, well, as long as the fans didn't overload his bandwidth or steal and repost his pictures elsewhere, what was the harm? So about half the galleries were open for the past few months as we tested the waters, but folks kept nabbing and reposting the pictures and Jason's bandwidth usage skyrocketed.

Then last week we had the gingerbread party and the pix went up, and didn't get locked down quick enough, but there had always been plans in the works to lock down and password-protect the whole site, and so, a couple days ago, Jason did just that.

If you have any questions about this, I will answer them as honestly as I can, but there's no hypocrisy or eeeevil at work there, just the matter of trying to save Jason's site from being overrun by fans bent on conspiracy-theorizing about the content of these (really rather innocent, rather personal, and rather human) photos. Plus -- as far as I can tell, half the fandom was bucking for Jason to lock down the site all along, saying he was naive about the ways of the internet and shouldn't have put them up for public viewing in the first place. So what's the deal?

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

And the lesson we learn from this: stay way from the insane Lotrips folk and return to the utterly sane tentacle porn writing ones.*g*

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Truer words were never spoken. *g* I'm talking to Hobs right now, in fact...

[cofax7]

The hell?

*wanders off, reads, points, laughs* People? Oy.

I need to talk to you, btw. About that thing, you know? In my garage? So ping me or something. I'll be around this weekend.

[cofax7]

Not to mention the fact that these people really need to check their definitions.

Courtesy of the Wikipedia:

On the Internet, troll is a slang term used to describe:
1. A person who makes posts (on newsgroups or other forums) that are solely intended to provoke responses from others, or to cause annoyance or offense.
2. A post that is intended to incite controversy or cause offense. (Many posts may inadvertently cause strife as collateral damage, but they are not trolls.)

Hell, you don't even qualify as a sock-puppet. Just Sab, doing her thing.

[illmantrim.livejournal.com]

fun fun fun!

[trees696969.livejournal.com]

Well good to know they are just locked down and not deleted, so friends and family can look. And if you think about it tell Jason that some fans are appreciative of him trusting enough to leave them up as long as he did. Some earned his trust and some didn't. Like anything else, good and bad in every group.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

No worries. You gotta understand, I'm a fan; I vouch for fandom every chance I get. I know that most folks in various fandoms are basically good, cool, smart people who have no interest in making people's lives difficult. It seems to me that the LOTR fandom has a disproportionate set of crazies, but that by no means suggests that all off you are off the rails. *g*

[empressaurelius.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear that you'll be password-protecting everything from now on-it seems like it's the only way to go. I was one of those people that thought that maybe Jason wasn't too internet-savvy, and I'm glad to be proven wrong.

I'm kind of at a loss for what to say. All fandoms have their crazies, their rabid fans, and unfortunately you guys encountered some of them because you happen to be friends with a celebrity. It's unfortunate, but celebrity is basically synonymous w/ 'no privacy' these days, and that's starting to include said celebrities' friends.

I have seen some of the 'sekrit pics', and I enjoyed them because of the human quality to them. I'm a people-watcher, so that part of me was happy. However, I'm not really too sad to hear that I won't be seeing any more 'sekrit pics'. The cost to you, and Jason, and everyone else involved was just too much. Drama sucks, and I'm sorry that you've had to deal w/ what you've had to deal with.

I'm sorry that you have to deal with the tinhats (aka Domelijah fans), too. If you ask me, out of all the shippers out there, they are the most insane and fanatical. I hate them with a passion because of their rudeness and their inability to see reality and accept what is right in front of them. Just to get it out in the open-YES, I am a slash fan. I am a Sean Astin/Elijah fan. I've written fiction. But I know, BEYOND THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT, that they are in no way romantically involved and never will be, and that Sean is a happily married man with two daughters. It's just FUN for me, and nothing else.

All of that being said.....if it weren't the pics, and fandom and everything, I would've never heard of you or your journal, so for that, I am greateful; otherwise, I wouldn't tentatively be getting to know such a cool, interesting lady!


P.S. See you on Monday?

P.P.S. Sorry for carrying on....

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Don't stress about it; thanks for posting.

[fourteenlines.livejournal.com]

Well, y'know. Sab's Home for Wayward Girls and Uruk-Hai. Troll Cave. Same difference.

*watches fandom implode*

We all knew you were evil anyway. Just, y'know, not for the reasons we thought you were! How could we be so blind!

[fourteenlines.livejournal.com]

Waitaminute. Did you ever, like, POST in the community, saying inflammatory things and generally making a complete ass of yourself? I'm wondering if we have a very different definition of "troll," here.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Um. Wow. This is where I give humble thanks for my great, great distance from that fandom.

I don't really know what to say other than I'm sorry you got embroiled in all that wank. What craziness.

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

the first rule of fight club is...

but mostly, hey, don't forget to call me when you get lined up against the wall, you crazy girl. and also, remind me to tell you a funny story about some flame/fandom war on account of another friend of your and elijah's mutual friend.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

QUE? Spill it. Call me tomorrow.

Also, I love you, but I can't go to Echo Park; I'm going to BED. Or at least going horizontal for a good long while.

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

Apparently some people have a very, very warped definition of trolling... Ah well.

My only issue (not even bigenough to deserve that name, really) with Jason was the bitchy tone of the new replacement public page, which made me bitchy right back.
Nothing that didn't fade in the course of an hour, as I certainly hope his bad mood faded too-- It's easy to see why he would have a bitchy moment or two about it all. As long as he is savvy enough to share the photos he takes the way he wants to share them with the public of his choice, it's all that matters, innit?

Other than that, fen will be fen, assholes will be assholes and idiots will be idiots... I'm happy mocking as long as tinhats remain tinhats! They still bring much fun into my life, and so. Some brand of crazy has *more* than a silver lining... *goes back to dl_a, away from seekritpics wank*

[noelleleithe.livejournal.com]

The only thing at work there is the LOTR fandom wackos being insanely jealous that you & others are friends with Elijah and looking for any excuse to try to smack you for it. That's it. There's no rational thought involved.

Eh. I love seeing the pictures, not because Elijah's in them but because you guys are all adorable and there are some fabulous shots (and I love good photography). But I can certainly live without them to save Jason's bandwidth. I don't think there's much he can do about the conspiracy theorizing, though. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

Plus -- as far as I can tell, half the fandom was bucking for Jason to lock down the site all along, saying he was naive about the ways of the internet and shouldn't have put them up for public viewing in the first place. So what's the deal?

Fandom - any fandom - is not a hivemind. Those of us who felt Jason was being a skosh naive about the interest of fans in his famous friends and thought maybe it would be best if he locked things up are not the same people as the ones who demand that everything be laid out like a salad bar for the whole world to pick at.

The people who consider your friends their playthings aren't going to be deterred in their pursuit of grabbing whatever they can of them by simple requests. Some of us knew that, but I suppose it's understandable that Jason didn't, not being in the thick of fandom as we are. Although, one would think that a few billion in box office and 17 million t.v. viewers might be a hint that there's some interest in the people in question. I wish it weren't the case, but Elijah and Dom and the people who know them are going to have to accept that they just aren't percieved as jes' reg'lar folk by many of their fans. Despite the fact that the content of the pictures in question is really no different than the content of any pictures taken within a group of friends, the subjects of them make them far more valuable. Why else would paparazzi exist? If it's interesting and valuable to get a shot of Elijah buying cigs at Circle K, it's valuable to get shots of him drinking a beer with his friends. Only the photographer has changed. The audience hasn't.

I don't mean to be critical, especially since I think Jason's gotten far more than his fair share of shit for how this has happened, but I would suggest that maybe taking the wishful thinking blinders off is a good idea. I could've told anyone that merely asking people to be nice wasn't going to work, because much of this fandom doesn't consider the people in question to be anything more than voodoo dolls. They are not three-dimensional human beings, merely images on a screen. They may as well be fictional characters. In fact, some fans deliberately detach themselves from actors' humanity because it breaches the fourth wall. Once you've seen Elijah smoking and cursing like a dock worker, it can be hard to accept the hairy feet and velvet trousers, or whatever other fictional version of him is canonical to the fan in question.

I think it's a shame that things are like this. I'm sure Elijah and Dom and the rest of the gang would like to simply behave as if they're just normal people with normal lives, but to much of the rest of the world, they're simply not, and probably never will be. Wishing things were different, and acting as if they are doesn't make that so. I think very few fans want to see them hurt or anything, or would deliberately do something they knew to be damaging to them, but enough fans either simply don't realize what they're doing or don't care that it requires a certain level of caution. Deleting those galleries is a small sacrifice, and it's unfortunate that it has to happen, but it really should have been done quite some time ago. I don't like that people can be like this any more than anyone else does, but that's just how things are. Welcome to the fishbowl. The work those two have done is on a massive global scale. They're not exactly doing community theater productions of South Pacific. It shouldn't be surprising that some people want parts of that. Why else would people be friending your journal right and left? Why else would people who haven't even heard their music be posting on the WWS forum? I'm sure you don't kid yourself that people are actually interested in you. Going by interviews, I've never gotten the impression that Elijah and Dom want to be this cynical, but perhaps some cynicism is necessary. I won't speak for fandom and say I'm sorry on their behalf, because I'm sure many of them aren't sorry and never will be, but I am personally sorry that any of you have to go through this, even if it's just a petty annoyance, and I fully understand why the action is being taken, even though I wish circumstances were such that it wouldn't have to be.

[maudelynn.livejournal.com]

Don't kid yourself Em... I am interested in you ! Smooch !

[cpsings4him.livejournal.com]

Sab,

While I am a LOTR fan, I am not a LOTRips person, but I just wanted to tell you that I hate that this has happened! You all seem like such nice, kind, generous, just all-around good people - and you don't deserve to have to deal with this.

I have no idea who the 'troll' is they are apparently referring to in those threads. I have not read that thread or any other thread in that community. I knew about the seekrit pics community (for you'd have to be living under a rock in the LOTR fandom to NOT know about it), but have deliberately NOT gone there just because I knew Jason was NOT cool with people doing that - and I respect that.

I kind of missed the opening scene of this whole thing. It seemed to have happened so fast and apparently while I was in bed! By the time I heard about any secret pics, the main ones in question (apparently some of Elijah eating corn [still haven't seen those - and yet I live! *marvels!*] and some house pics) had already been taken down and put under lock. So, at the moment I entered the 'know' of these pics, the person who had originally put them up in her journal was fretting over having done so and working damage control. I just kind of looked at the whole thing with a 'erm...ok, not sure what just happened here, but whatever' and went on with my life. Then, a few days later, someone posted a message that Jason said it was fine to look but not touch - that as long as you didn't pinch any of the pictures for yourself, it was fine to come and look at them - and this person included the addy. Naturally, being the curious girl I am, I admit, I went, I looked.

Once I got there though, what interested me more than the E pics were some of Jason's landscape pics! I love to draw and paint and some of his photography just screamed to be painted! So, I e-mailed him to ask permission to use one of his (non-Elijah) pics as a model for a painting. He was very generous and told me that it was fine to use that particular pic for that purpose and that he would even like to see the finished product. I had mentioned to him that I hoped it was really ok that I had been in his gallery at all and told him about the message I had seen. I was then informed by Jason that the message I had seen had been a (conveniently!) truncated one that apparently left out the part about bandwidth being a problem, etc. He asked me to let anyone I knew in the LOTR fandom know this. I did, in this thread in my journal. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/cpsings4him/66811.html) I feared it would do little good as my friends list is rather miniscule in comparison with some and especially so light of the massiveness of the general LOTR fandom.

I don’t know what my point is really other than to say again that I’m sorry that some over-zealous fans have made your lives even a tiny bit more complicated and that I wish there was something (other than the tiny bit I tried to do) I could have done to prevent it.

You know we’re not all like that, right? As I said when I first stumbled across your journal - yes, I am an Elijah ‘fan’ and that is what first grabbed my attention about your journal…but on closer inspection, you are also quite an interesting, funny, MASH lovin’, Scrubs-lovin’, charming girl and I enjoy your entries - whether or not they include talk of certain well known friends of yours.

Let me know if there’s anything I can do - I’m not a BNF or anyone even remotely ‘important’ in so far as the fandom goes, but I’ll try to help in any way I can.

Blessings!
cp

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

No worries, kiddo. And thanks for posting. I certainly don't gauge all of fandom by the actions of some particularly neurotic loons.

I didn't know you were the one who wanted to paint one of Jason's pics! He told me about that when he got your e-mail, and we're both looking forward to seeing the finished product. He was really flattered.

[apathocles.livejournal.com]

Nothing quite like the smell of insanity in the morning.

[maudelynn.livejournal.com]

Emily .. you are the cutest troll i have ever seen! I am have so rather lovely shots from monday night that I am thinking of pimping out so we can go to Hawaii :P
Hope you are enjoying the warm weather down there... it is foggy and chilly here!

M

[maudelynn.livejournal.com]

PS what is an LOTRip? I am the most out of the fandom loop fan I know

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

LOTR RPS, which is Real-Person-Slash, and a point of fan contention in its own right. This is the one, you know, where they think Lij and Dom are secretly in love and sending each other secret messages and, like, Evey is a beard? Those folks. *snort*

[esorlehcar.livejournal.com]

Jesus, people are insane. I love the bit claiming that talking about your friends in your own LJ makes you a hypocrite, and the threats to screencap and repost your public posts. That'll teach you!

Honestly, the whole sekrit pictures debacle has just been, if you'll forgive the use of a grade school term, gross from start to finish. The way the pictures got out in the first place, the public posting and then hysterical handwringing about invasion of privacy OMG, the people who saved all the pictures and passed them around to their friends shrieking about how they proved Dom and Elijah's true love (did know straight men never light each other's cigarettes? It's true. Just ask the tinhats) while posting public moralistic rants about these pictures were private and no one should look at them. And on, and on, and on. Lotrips has the highest percentage of crazy of any fandom I've ever participated in, and this is just further proof of that.

This latest chapter doesn't even make sense - your first comment on the community mentioned that you knew Jason, it's how the nutcases found you in the first place. How exactly does this constitute you playing mole?

gracheness is on drunkonyrsmile. I probably can't kick her off just for being a flaming idiot, can it?

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

This latest chapter doesn't even make sense - your first comment on the community mentioned that you knew Jason, it's how the nutcases found you in the first place. How exactly does this constitute you playing mole?

Well, yes, precisely. I don't try too hard to figure out those kinds of puzzles; it gies me a headache. *g*

[kernezelda]

Geez, that takes the cake for nuttiness.
Stick to RPG, where we love you for your minds.

Daaaamn.

[septicemic.livejournal.com]

Sab, you're dealing extraordinarily gracefully with this outburst of batshit. If I were wearing a hat, it would be off to you.

[runs back to c_t to hide from fandom looniness]

Re: Daaaamn.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

See how c_t is the most civilized spot in the entire European Theater of Operations? Mmmm.

Meanwhile, I love this icon. THANK YOU!

[hederahelix.livejournal.com]

le sigh. if you're a troll does that mean that you get to have boromoir talking about you?

they've got a cave troll

is your spiffy hannukah present hat proof of your impending trolldom? is that what explains the green spiky parts?

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

omg that hat is SO the tin-resistant model. now i realize why we had to buy it. ourhatsaresoprescient.

[malakhai.livejournal.com]

I am not an LOTRips person and I don't want to be put in that placeholder, thanks...but I am an LOTR fan.

I just want to say, BNF's suck. Tinhats suck. Wankers suck. Trolls suck.

You aren't in any of those categories. Yo'ure just an innocent bystander who got a finger pointed at them unjustly.

The whole Jason situation got blown way out of proportion by GREEDY PEOPLE.

Personally I didn't visit Jason's galleries, I felt too guilty. I would get the pictures from friends.

I guess being raised Catholic by a Jewish mother gave me issues.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

As others have mentioned here, it's mostly, I think, about jealousy and resentment. Jason's taken away their sandbox, and they're pouting and tantruming. Ah well, the crazy shall go ever on.

I will say that I'm glad the pictures were available for a while, at least. They gave us a very very human glimpse, away from red carpets and event shots. That's the fangirl in me talking, though. I can completely understand why Jason took them down, and have no issues with it whatsoever. I'd be a freakin hypocrite if I did, because I have my OWN password-protected pics up online, as if anyone would even care to see them ;)

And the accusations towards you? Hell, just laugh at em. That's the only way to get through!

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

HEE! She said, laughing.

[not-alone.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how sad I am about all this. I'm not sure if I'm a LOTRips person because I don't even know what it means - but I am a LOTR fan and an Elijah fan and yes, I admit it gave me great joy to see pics of E in his everyday, normal life and I felt happy to know that he was obviously enjoying life and has good friends. But I think I knew from the beginning that it couldn't last because, although the majority of my LOTR friends are caring, sensible people, I am also aware that there is a great deal of selfishness and stupidity in the fandom (and probably in any fandom, but this is the only one I've ever known)and that in the end it would be these people who would spoil it for everyone. I will miss the pics very much, but I do feel guilty now to think that by looking at them I have somehow contributed to all this upset for Jason, for you and all your friends, including my dear E. I hope you all carry on having a fun time and I shall continue to enjoy reading your LJ:)

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

No worries. As I said, I'm not in the business of sharing other peoples' private lives. Lij deserves downtime as much as anyone, and just because he's my buddy doesn't give me permission to bring details (or pictures) of our private lives to the public eye -- in fact, quite the contrary -- it makes me responsible for protecting his privacy -- and Jason's as well. Which is why I asked the community to stop stealing and reposting the pics. I've locked down my own pics too, 'cause he asked me to.

Anyway, don't blame yourself, and presumably this, like everything else, will blow over shortly.

[bunniewabbit.livejournal.com]

The issue is that half the fandom thinks that the photos should have remained private, while the other half has this sense of entitlement that because the photos were posted on the internet, they're public property and everyone should be allowed to do whatever they want with them. The latter is the philosophy of the owner of the seekrit_pics comm. If you in any way tried to stop their fun or reprimanded them for re-posting the photos, then you would fit their definition of a troll, yes.

A good question might be, how did fandom discover his gallery in the first place? A reasonable answer might be: well, it's the internet, things are bound to get out eventually.

*raises hand weakly* I feel compelled to confess that I would be at least partially my fault. I got the link from a friend who did not realize what she had stumbled into, and I posted some of the photos in my LJ before I realized that it was a private gallery. I deleted them within 20 minutes of posting them (and, incidentally, never posted a link to the gallery), but the damage was done. Folks tracked down the gallery, and... huge wank ensued. It was blown wa-a-ay out of proportion, and I was accused of selfishly keeping the photos from the fandom (never mind that I deleted the ones I had saved off my hard drive, as well). People insisted that I was a hypocrite, imagining that I was sharing the photos with a select few of my friends in private, when, in fact, nothing of the sort occurred. I didn't bother to tell anyone this, because by that point, I was just trying to let it all die down on its own (ha!).

It didn't stop others from posting and sharing, though. Even now, that gracheness person is boasting about having three Photobucket accounts full to the brim with 'seekrit pics' (and at least one of the albums is not difficult to find). I just don't get people, and how they think that this is okay.

You seem like a very smart, charming, funny lady, and I'm sorry that you and your friends have had to suffer for what I feel was initially my mistake. I feel pretty certain that if it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else, though. Doesn't make it all right, but I do think it was inevitable.

I, for one, think it was incredibly generous of Jason to keep the albums open for as long as he did. And I am glad that he protected them, instead of deleting them, so that his friends could continue to share them.

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Okay, look. Don't stress about it. I'll tell you -- if I came across a cache of cool pictures I'd want to share them too. And I honestly have no problem with the fact that they were shared in the first place, because such is the nature of the internet. If it hadn't been you, it'd be someone else, no question.

We're just a little stressed about the second place, and the third place, and the heaps of times when, on Jason's behest, we asked the community nicely to please stop poaching the pictures, and this whole wossname erupted. Anyway, it's over (maybe). So, y'know, happy holidays! *g*

[kangeiko]

Oh my word.

*blink*

Well, what do you know, someone went and had a big plate of crazy for lunch! I had a wade through the entirety of the community's posts, mainly because it resembled a car crash - so gruesome, you couldn't look away.

You have my sympathies for having to deal with this nonsense.

I am suddenly very, very glad that I am not in either the LOR nor the Lotrips fandoms, so have no chance of running into these people elsewhere...

[natoth.livejournal.com]

Sab, you are welcome!!! (http://www.livejournal.com/users/natoth/220456.html?view=484136#t484136)

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Looks like fun! Thank you.