I Want to Strangle the Sock Puppets

The internet sock puppets, that is. Okay, that maybe strangling is too harsh a punishment But, come on! Get a life already.


For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a sock puppet, as descibed by Wikipedia is an online identity used for purposes of deception within an online community. In its earliest usage, a sockpuppet was a false identity through which a member of an Internet community speaks with or about himself or herself, pretending to be a different person,[1] like a ventriloquist manipulating a hand puppet.


Here are my specific interactions with sock puppets. First, on the amazon.com ABNA thread, there is an option at the bottom of each post asking the reader if they feel that post contributes to the thread. It seems a couple of sock puppets went through and hit the "no" button on every post of mine as well as a few friends, on every single thread we participated on. This annoyed me a little, but not very much. I didn't get enough "no" votes for it to make a difference, and the result would just have been my post being hidden from those who chose not to read it.

Interaction number two, people who post under a pseudonym and spew nothing but toxins and venom. There were four that I recall on the ABNA threads, and I will call them out, Billy de Vere aka Michael Caulfield, aka Juanita, AIRMID aka about 50 other names, and R.E. Cluse aka Maura something. I don't really care who they really are, what I care about is the fact that just about every post from them was negative. They continually bashed other posters and other threads and wondered why everybody had a problem with them.

My third interaction is ongoing, happening probably as we speak. The anonymous sock puppet is going around and voting "no" on every single review I post for the ABNA contesants. Now this I find greatly annoying. I take the time to read every excerpt thoroughly, each take me about fifteen minutes. I take notes while I'm reading. I compile and organize notes to form a script. I film my review trying to point out the good qualities of the piece. This takes me about 30 minutes. I edit the video, this takes me anywhere from about 30 minutes to an hour. I add titles and effects and turn it into a polished piece. Then I upload to amazon, Facebook, and Youtube, this usuall takes anywhere from 10 too 20 minutes per site. I have been adding not only my blog address, but also the entries web address to get the author more hits to their entry. This is why I am pissed. I put my time and effort into this, and to have someone come and down it, just because they don't like me for some strange reason just doesn't make sense to me. Does it make sense to you?


The bottom line, sock puppets have way too much time on their hands. I mean, I screw around on the internet a little (stop laughing) but even I don't have time to go hit every no button, search for the perfect post to criticize, and spew my toxicity all over the internet. Who would want to?

These are pathetic, bitter, more than likely ugly people (both physically and emotionally), and it saddens me that someone hates people enough to try to make their lives a little more miserable. And please do not get them confused with sock monkeys, for the latter are cute, loveable, squishy creatures, with nice long arms for hugging rejected writers.

Grow up sock puppet. We see through you.