Here's what I have so far people- suggestions are welcomed of course!


One of the most interesting critiques of Digg, youtube, and other social media sites, has been that such sites tend to "over-democratize" the media. This over-democratization, combined with the relative anonymity that users of such sites enjoy, fosters a mob-rule mentality amongst users of such media. If you then give these users a seemingly morally-justifiable position to take, then the results can be fascinating-- and worrisome. This is exemplified by what I have come to call the case of "The Moron vs. McFearsome's Mobb."


-On March 18th, 2008 Jesse McPherson creates his first official blog (see http://blog.mcfearsome.com/index-dynamic.php/page/2/). This blog has only one tag (intro) and receives no comments-- both of which imply that Jesse was not previously well-known on the internet, nor did he expect to be particularly well-known.

-On March 22nd, Jesse creates a post on his blog entitled "Wow! Your a MORON!" in which he informs his potential audience that his Xbox360, laptop, and TV were stolen and that he believes he identified the culprit through using googlemap to locate the nearest pawnshop and then using a digital camera to capture images from the pawnshops security camera (the person working the register claimed that they did not know how to get video off the camera). Jesse then describes receiving a message after he hooked up replacement xbox (given to him by sympathetic coworkers) and recovered his xboxlive account. The message is, apparently, from the culprit and is offering to sell Jesse his xbox back for 200 dollars.

-Jesse responds by tracing the registry of his stolen xbox (all those who create a profile on xboxlive must register their xbox to an MSN account, which of course, contains a great deal of personal information). Jesse then posts the suspect's xbox profile information to his blog.

-Jesse also submits his blog to digg on the same day (using the digg username of "endochrisen"). This is his first submission to Digg and one of only two submissions altogether, so it can hardly be said that he was a Digg celebrity beforehand.

-Within roughly 12 hours, Jesse's submission was the most-dugg article of the past 24 hours on Digg, with well over 4000 total diggs.- he has yet to receive any assistance from either a detective or the Philadelphia police department.

- The suspect, a sixteen year old high school student, begins to receive numerous threatening messages on his xboxlive account, some of which reference his girlfriend (who was in no way involved in the entire incident). The suspect eventually claims that he bought the xbox off of 'some guy,' although at first he responded to Jesse by taunting him about his xbox being stolen. Eventually, the suspect's mother returns the xbox to Jesse by leaving it in a white trashbag on Jesse's doorstep.

So what is the point of it all? There are several...

1.) Jesse went from being relatively unknown within the Digg community, to being a celebrity of sorts-- one who wielded a significant amount of soft power.

2.) (Related to one) Obviously, anonymity on the internet is far from guaranteed- neither Jesse nor the thief (or rather, the suspect) appear to have intended to become famous through this.

3.) The line between virtual world and meatspace is becoming far more transient than it once was, perhaps to the point of where the two should no longer be viewed as separate entities. We can see that the actions of two individuals in cyberspace had dramatic and largely unintended consequences in the real world, as is clear from the events I have outlined below-

-Eventually, the suspect is forced to remove his xboxlive account due to harassment. He claims to be quite "scared" by the threats he has received (see images on the entry for March 24th at Mcpherson's blog at http://blog.mcfearsome.com/2008/03/22/wow-your-a-moron/). Jesse himself becomes somewhat frightened too- he is visted by a group of "goons" (see his twitter at http://plasmashield.wordpress.com/) who claim that Jesse has the wrong guy and who try to get him to go outside to 'talk.'

-Jesse's twitters alone became popularized-- (see http://plasmashield.wordpress.com/) his twitter alone about having the xbox finally returned to him achieved, in eight hours, the 7th most-dugg article in the last 24 hours on Digg. His official blog post about it, combined with his earlier blogposts regarding the saga of his missing xbox, pushed his blog into the #2 spot on digg of the last 7 days-- within two days of being submitted.

-Furthermore, a wikipage is created (by someone other than Jesse- and, likely, someone unknown to Jesse since he refers to them only as "the administrator) upon which users can post information regarding the whole incident- see http://xboxmoron.wikidot.com/. A great deal of personal information about the suspect (including his full name) was posted on here. Though much of this info. has since been removed, it was fully accessible and popularized-- and thus available for anyone who wished to (ab)use it.

-Some diggers, including Jesse himself, question the lengths to which some users have gone in their harassment of the suspect (see http://plasmashield.wordpress.com/). Specifically, concerns are expressed in regards to threats made to the suspect that referenced his girlfriend.

-Also expressed is a concern regarding the suspects age-- at 16 he is a minor who can legitimately claim to have been unintentionally endangered by the internet- in a way in which digg is largely responsible.

-Several AIM conversations between the subject and harassing users were published to websites as well, undermining the suspects right to privacy.

-Virtual reality likely had an enormous impact on meatspace, particularly the suspect's meatspace-- for better or worse, he is now known as the "Moron" on digg, his xbox live profile was removed, his parents were informed of, and involved in, the incident, he will likely face legal consequences for his actions, much of his personal information has been propagated, without his knowledge or consent, across several popular websites,