2003-01-17 - 11:10 p.m.

The Dark Side

You know, there seemed to be something missing in that last entry about Diaryland Survivor. Hmmm. What could it be?

How about all the drama! This latest season set a new standard in online wackiness! The televised Survivor was a snore-fest compared to the fussing and feuding that sprang from the internet contest and seemed to spread outward in ever wider ripples.

Let's see, we had: contestants vs. contestants, judges vs. contestants, contestants vs. judges, judges vs. judges, a judge getting dismissed (a first!), anonymous guestbook postings, an anonymous commentator on the contest, flame wars, an attempted hacking, threatened legal action, a tell-all rant or two, personal attacks and accusations... a whole big smorgasbord of wacky human misbehavior. An outside observer might rightfully conclude that the contest is some sort of mental illness magnet.

The fact is that nearly all of this stuff had happened in the previous contests, perhaps the only difference was that it wasn't dished quite so publicly. Usually when the anonymous mischief makers got found out (and they always did) they were privately informed that the jig was up. The standard procedure is that they would deny the evidence, but the mysterious abuse would stop; a word to the wise usually shut these people up. However in this case the naughty parties were forced to issue denials and then attempt a public relations campaign to garner sympathy and confuse the issue. Those of us who knew what was going on watched in amazement as they capered around, making a show of innocence.

This round Diaryland Survivor almost became an audience participation show with all sort of non-contestants mixing it up, one of them even starting a diary which seemed to be mainly devoted to dishing the contest. This wasn't new either, but previous commentators didn't usually just make up most of the stuff they are talking about.

It probably won't surprise anyone reading this for me to say that having an online diary requires a certain amount of ego and vanity. However, when that ego gets bruised or that vanity gets punctured, watch the fireworks begin! Maybe this sort of conflict is inevitable in a contest where people have to pick each other off, one by one.

All of which made this round of DL-Survivor a really bizarre sort of cyber-street theater, alternating between entertaining and terrifying. Hey! It's Enterterrorism!

It was fun, after a fashion, but it definitely caused me to lower my estimate of the world's average mental stability. Hey, anything that teaches you something is good, right?