It’s kind of ironic that someone e-mailed me about Virginia Montanez, the blogger formerly known as PittGirl, and asked me if what happened to her made me nervous.
For those who don’t feel like clicking on the link Montanez is the author of the hilarious Burgh Blog, and as PittGirl she had her legion of devoted minions-myself included-following her every word about her hatred of pigeons, mocking tweeny girls in love with Ben Roethlisberger, “self-uniting husbands” and much more about living in Pittsburgh. Last year, however, she stopped writing the blog because she didn’t want her cover blown. Recently she revived the blog and revealed her true identity as a 35-year-old married mother of two and marketing director for a non-profit organization … a non-profit who immediately fired her once she came out. This is not a new phenomenon-in fact there’s even a word for it, “dooced,” taken from the popular Dooce mommy blog whose author, Heather Armstrong, was also canned from her day job after revealing herself. Armstrong has since gone on to become a full time writer and it’s widely speculated Montanez will do the same.
As I’ve stated in here previously, I work for a humongous “if I named it you’d know it immediately” corporation, with hundreds of thousands of employees around the world. I’ve also never been anonymous. Type my name in Google and you’ll get lots of stuff about me and INS (and the occasional Roadfood.com review and sports blog post-what can I say, my interests vary). However, in the 6.5 years INS has been online and the four that the blog’s been around, I can honestly say that I have NEVER had anyone come up to me unsolicited and say “you run that abortion stories site?” This includes family members and coworkers. True, INS doesn’t have remotely close to the readership of a Burgh Blog or a Dooce, but in six plus years you’d think someone would have made the connection.
I do take caution, though. I don’t name my husband or family members here, nor do I name my employer or friends. Once upon a time an anti got hold of my home address, gleaned from when I registered the site, and posted it on a forum. In the forum’s defense they immediately smacked the guy down for doing so. Here comes the irony-I found out about it two years after it happened.
So in short no, I don’t worry about getting dooced. I’m very small potatoes in the blogging world, and I think it would take something along the lines of getting featured on the front page of the paper or being on TV to even approach the possibility of doocing, and that’s not happening. If it ever did … well, I’ll deal with it if the time comes.
