As a psychologist, I'm fascinated by how people behave, and I founded my academic career on researching how people behave when they are online.
Invisible Poets and several of the other poetry groups I run are online. This means I have a vested interest in understanding how poets conduct themselves in online spaces.
One of the key factors of online life is anonymity. There's a great cartoon showing two dogs at a computer screen. One says 'Nobody knows you're a dog on the internet!'
People can, and sometimes do mask their identities online. Many don't share their real names or prefer to use noms-de-plume (as conventional writers have done for centuries), and this affords some kind of anonymity. Unfortunately some (a very few thankfully) see this as an opportunity to behave badly.
They feel that because they are anonymous, they can behave as they like and there will be no consequences. It's similar to the abuse you might get from another motorist. The other driver feels once removed because they are safe in their own vehicle. They wouldn't dream of shouting abuse at you if you were together, face to face in one room. In psychology this is known as disinhibition. Individuals feel less socially inhibited because of their context, in this case hiding behind a fake digital avatar or persona. They think this gives them licence to act like idiots.
Bad online behaviour takes many forms, from abuse and trolling, through stalking and misogyny to masquerading as someone else. Commonly in poetry groups, the individual pretends to be interested in your work and then offers to promote or publish you. Often they are simply trying to appeal to your vanity so they can exploit you.
Others do their best to scam you out of money by pretending to be down on their luck, or in debt, or suffering a serious illness. There are also a few blatant plagiarists out there (more on this in my next blog post) who have no scruples about stealing your idea and pretending it's theirs.
Any and all of these types of individuals are removed from my groups without a second chance. There is no strike two. And that, dear friends is how we try to keep our poetry groups safe. You can help, by calling out these bad behaviours and informing Admin if you spot them.
Steve Wheeler
Image used under Creative Commons License from Pexels
