There’s No Reality Show in Your Future

I’ve stalled on that damned book. The author is acting like an ass over on Goodreads, harassing, stealing identities, creating socks as fast as GRs bans them. His bad behavior got me to thinking and here we are.

I never considered the writing of a book to be performance art but lately with all the Badly Behaving Authors multiplying like rabbits you have to wonder how they define being an author.  And then there are the bloggers out for truth, justice and, let’s face it, the fame of bagging the biggest BBA.  It’s sort of like Swamp People, they bait their hooks and wait for the big gator/BBA to come along and bite. Then they grab them by the tail and let them thrash around.

Creates quite a show. Lots of splashing around, lots of screaming and shouting, the outcome of each encounter is up for grabs.  If the gator BBA wins they cruise off to write a triumphant blog about their righteous actions and how the supposed good guys are really the bad guys. If the blogger wins there is a lot of posturing and preening and screencaps of their victory.  Just like hanging that dead gator up and getting a picture.

Everybody involved makes noise and they all retreat and there’s a new episode next week. Or a repeat. Lots of those.

And it can be fun to watch the occasional episode but really, just how many ways are there to trap a gator BBA? Especially one that’s wriggled away before.  After a while your audience can predict the next move, then the countermove, then they conclude that both sides aren’t too swift or are just playing with each other for the 15 minutes of fame factor and they lose interest and go read a good or a bad book.

And deal with all the small shit that is happening to them. Like now. Like Victor Bertolaccini, he’s the author of the book I’m trying to read, he’s the author currently running amok on Goodreads. He’s not worth the time or energy of any of these bloggers of truth, justice, and 15 minutes of fame. He isn’t that big of an internet presence. He won’t get your name on the first page of a Google search.

But don’t you worry, the rest of us can handle Victor and the many more just like him. We’ve been doing it all along. We might bitch a little, okay, a lot. We might complain, rant rave, froth. But we do it. We have each other’s backs. You just have that big ol’ gator BBA. When he/she’s gone so is the show.

So is your “fame”.