Anonymity a must?

So, this has been a heated conversation between myself and my very good friends. One loves learning all the little behind-the-scenes of the Slenderverse but other blatantly refuses to hear anything because she doesn't want the immersion to be broken, especially with slenderblogs. As I was talking up one of the blog from one of the members here, she kept cutting me off because she didn't seem interested. Her argument was that, if we know who is behind the slenderblogs (while they are still going at least) we cannot be objective. At first, I valiantly fought against this point, but as I continued I started to realize she had a point. I give work from people I know much more lenience then I do works from strangers. In fact, I tend to change my mind once I learn/talk to the creators of slenderblogs after reading them. I've also pushed a blog by someone on here (no, I won't name names. That wouldn't be fair.) after getting to know the person, even after I gave their slenderblog a bad review. Objectivity be damned I suppose.

Her other argument is that if we know who is behind the written works, we can't be immersed or worry. It is harder to empathize with text on a screen then bad actors in a video. If we know the person behind the slenderblog just writes this between homework assignments, we can't feel compelled to follow their stories. Which is kind of true. I will read more work by someone I don't know than work by someone I do know. Again, OBJECTIVITY BE DAMNED!

I want to hear your take now. Do you prefer to know who is behind your slenderblogs or do you think the anonymous nature must be obtained to work a proper story?

Um, I see both sides of the story in this situation.

Yes, we take a different light on blogs and things that we know, and the fact that you know the person for who they really are makes it a little harder to get their story. I just see the character to be a totally different person, but I guess that comes from roleplaying for forever.

I think that it does help if you don't know the people involved. Immersion is a huge factor into what makes the series scary. That said, even with all Adam's mocking himself, Tribe Twelve is still scary. Even though I laughed all the way through the Marble Hornets Season 1 commentary, Marble Hornets is still scary. If they're well made, they distinguish between the characters and the authors.

I don't think you need it. I agree with what Alder said. All the OOG stuff doesn't affect me. Except for Troy's blog because of the occasional spoilers, that is one thing that ruins it for me.

Really, I feel like as long as the universe of the story is fleshed out well enough it shouldn't matter too much. Any story, whether it's a Slenderblog or a movie or book works the same way, I think. I mean, you know it's not real but if you can get sucked into the story then it doesn't really matter. Immersion is nice of course, but for me personally I have no problem still being scared even if I know that it's actually just some guy living in a basement.

Of course somtimes, knowing that only makes it even creepier.


There are spoilers on Troy's blog? I don't believe I've noticed...

I'm against the idea for very obvious reasons, reasons that I keep spouting off about all the time.


Often enough I have kept myself to myself and not shared my age and gender. I have had grannies, gay men, underage kids all throwing themselves at me because the fell in love with the idea of who they thought I was.

I opened up on here, after a month, or two, because I didn't want anyone thinking I was some sort of creepy old guy mixing with teens so he could get his jollies.

But saying that being open on the net, in general protects everyone, even me....I'm a red blooded male, if someone comes up to me and asks for cyber sex I may weaken...But what happens if that person turns out to be an 11 year old boy? I fail big time...Not that I do that stuff with anyone but my long distance girlfriend, but you catch my drift..

Hell, why did I tell you that last bit anyway?

It's prolly just me, but I rather don't mind interacting with creator type people, doesn't really throw me. I just think of them as different people than the people in the series they are in. *shrugs* so yeah I guess I don't care either way XD

LISA YOUR POST IS RUINING MY IMMERSION.

I see no reason why we should have this barrier between the creators and the audience because of the holy "immersion" word everyone keeps throwing around. People say that the reason the Mythos is scary is because "It could be real!"
Honestly? How many people actually think that? Everyone knows the blogs/vlogs are fictional stories made by regular guys and girls. Why pretend we think otherwise?

I know as someone who only joined a few days ago, my opinion is less valid, but I agree with Lisa's friend's first argument. It's harder to truthfully criticize things when you know the person who did them, unless you know them very very well. The immersion doesn't really bug me, because I'm not imaginative enough to believe it anyway. XD

GUYS YOU ARE RUINING MY IMMERSION

...*ahem* /Unfiction jab

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure on this. Now I Shall Know You Again was pretty well-known as mine among members of the forum and the circle of creators (which is almost hilariously ironic, as Jekyll as a character would be HIGHLY against that). Many of my readers found out about the blog from me in the first place. On the other hand, there were many people who were shocked when they found out just who Jekyll was.

Really, the problem with so many blogs is that they've been Sturgeoned so much and they cross over so frequently that you don't need to ruin immersion anymore. They've done that themselves. That has to change before we have to worry about thinking of things as a story instead of an account.

Until then, though, I don't see how OOG news ruins too much.

I actually think that knowing the authors (or knowing more about them) enhances a work. Then again, I have tons of experience with this kind of thing - I seek out the blogs of YA authors I like, I've been playing ARGs for a while, I've written and reviewed fanfics. The thing is, when you know the authors, you can pick up on little references to their lives in their works. It's pretty cool.

As far as ZOMGRUININMAHEMERSHUN goes, that's what suspension of disbelief is for. There's a reason (most) ARGs have curtains instead of walls between the creators and the players: you can remove the veil whenever you like. While the slenderblogosphere is less ARG and more collaborative fiction (and thus, the line between players and creators is much less clear-cut), that still applies.

What I don't like is excessive self-promotion. As an audience member, it's cool if I can know you outside of whatever you're creating. It's annoying when all you talk about is your creation. Make friends, not fans, yeah?

I'm up for making friends.

In my experience, being an anonymous slenderblogger is both a blessing and a curse. Being anonymous means that you, currently, do not take credit for your blog. If it sucks, that's great because it means that no one has to know it was you and you can start over again. If it is successful, not so great until you are willing to sign for it. Either way, it makes not only getting reviews for it harder, but interpreting them as well. You can't advertise your blog, you can't show it to friends, you can't talk about it, nothing. And if it does somehow manage to get discovered and people review it, if you have a question about the review, you can't ask them. You isolate yourself from your audience somewhat.

For what it's worth, I find the behind-the-scenes stuff enormously fascinating and think it's actually enhanced my experience on several occasions. But this is coming from someone who listens to commentaries in her spare time.

As it's been pointed out, there's a lot more leniency for the blogger in question if Real Life Happens and they're unable to update on normal channels. I've seen some very creative explanations for a Slenderblogger handwaving an absence (character was "taken", character having similar real life setbacks such as exams or family troubles, in my own case, sudden character death etc, etc) but I do think it's a bit unfair for anonymous bloggers to have to alter their plot to explain their lack of updates.

I think that a smart compromise is keeping those that wish to know more about the inner workings of the blog and those that wish to immerse themselves separate. I haven't really seen too many OOG comments on the blogs I follow, which I respect, but I really don't think it should be an enormous secret that _____ runs so-and-so blog. It might make it more awkward to criticize them but it's not nearly as awkward as discovering that the reason _____ wasn't updating was because they got run over by a bus, right after you flamed them for not being consistent.

Sometimes I wish blogs were treated like novels.

Let me give you an example, my favorite book in high school was Daniel Handler's The Basic Eight. It is a first-person "journal" of an 18-year-old girl named Flannery Culp. It is incredibly well-written and the fact that a middle-aged man is writing as a teenage girl doesn't detract me from empathizing wih Flannery's character. I think if more blogs had a byline (SupercaliSlenderlicious by Writer McWriterson) in the corner of their profile or someplace fairly innocuous, it would save writers a lot of grief. If people want to look up more about the writer or story, they can, but those that don't, don't have to.

Novelists can answer questions about their story without RUINING EVERYTHING ABOUT THE BOOK. And before anyone mentions that the realism aspect is different with blogs, there are many fictional novels that after the copyright page, swear to be a true story and thus everything that happens afterward is to be taken as fact. Hell, even Dan Brown played around with that by placing his "facts" about Opus Dei after the copyright. There's no reason why anyone's immersion should be ruined by someone admitting to having written the blog. Anyone who has ever read or seen anything with the phrase "Based On A True Story" has experienced this.

I suppose I don't see what all the immersion fuss is about. Just because I know that the events of Fargo never happened, doesn't make me any less wary of wood chippers. I wouldn't reveal anything to those that didn't want to know but I would think quietly to myself that they were silly for feeling that way. With all due respect to your friend, of course.

Also, to make a long post even longer, my favorite appeasement to The Immersed is that the blog is real and the people running the blog are fictional. Works with every blog, ramps their paranoia to crazy levels and is generally wacky enough to defuse any tension.

Bard wrote:

What I don't like is excessive self-promotion. As an audience member, it's cool if I can know you outside of whatever you're creating. It's annoying when all you talk about is your creation. Make friends, not fans, yeah?

This, so very much. This is how I feel. I really don't mind and like to know the people behind the blogs/vlogs just as long as they aren't shamelessly whoring themselves out.

The biggest factor in any fictional media is willing suspension of disbelief. You have to be willing to immerse yourself and pretend X event really is happening, that it isn't being written by Y dude between Z and A homework assignments.

If one friend can keep it up after knowing the authors, then they're fine. If the other's immersion gets damaged by breaking that wall, then they're not WRONG, per se. It's a different and still valid approach.