Infamy, Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!

Computer bites man

Online shopping at 3am, Facebook, iTunes, email… No one can claim the internet was a bad idea (we’ll let spam go for now…)

But just occasionally something happens to remind you how dangerous that little box in the corner of your room can be to your reputation. Businesses have already woken up to the wildfire that can spread online and decimate their reputation in hours, but it’s even more frightening when this occurs to an individual.

Take what happened recently to a prominent Lost re-capper and reviewer. From the outside this was just a young guy who enjoyed making videos analysing the TV series. In fact, he had amassed a large audience of over 10,000 on YouTube and had even appeared on national TV. But when he was accused of stealing content from other bloggers in the Lost community, the response was irate, immediate and overwhelming… his YouTube videos were removed, his account suspended and copyright infringement claims filed. In a few short days his reputation was shredded to the extent that he may have to give up any thoughts of entering journalism or television presenting.

Still, at least he wasn’t the Star Wars Kid.

This is a purely online phenomenon. There are many cases of high-profile plagiarism in the real-world that have even been taken to court and yet have received little media coverage (have you ever heard of Sofia Stewart?).

Of course, this is partly to do with the huge audience that anyone can find themselves exposed to online. But it also results from the fact that online bloggers and social media addicts have a completely different news agenda to the mainstream media and sometimes even larger audiences. They also have no tangible regulation. And if you do something that angers them, well, you’re in big trouble…

Online, the line between fame and infamy is always dangerously close.