The paranoia of being stalked...

...does exist.
I am not denying there are real stalkers out there and that being stalked is not traumatic, this is not the point I am making in this post. I take stalking very seriously and I do think it is something that needs to be tackled responsibly. It's just that I am getting a little tired of hearing the constant whining of attention seeking people claiming they are being stalked online, when in fact all that is happening is that they put up some pictures on a site like deviantArt, someone comes along to look at the pictures, does not like them, leaves an unflattering comment, the 'artist' replies, the person comes back and leaves one or two more unflattering comments and that's it, from that point onwards the 'artist' claims to be stalked. The best thing to do in such cases is simply to ignore the 'critic', rather than getting all worked up , write post upon post about it, indulge in blocking and even start polls asking about the best way to tighten blocking measures.
Facebook is responsible for encouraging the 'being stalked' syndrome. When you get a friend request you are asked whether you know the person. If you reply that you don't, the person who sent the request is blocked, which means they cannot ever see you or contact you on Facebook. That is definitely rather extreme. I get all the time friendship requests from people I have never met and probably will never meet and who are simply friends of friends of friends. It does not mean I block them, nor do I feel stalked! If I am unsure I do not confirm the friendship but I do not report them to Facebook to block them as 'unknown'.

 I am a very pragmatic person. The point of having a Facebook account is for me to plug myself as a model, so the more friends I have the better.When I finally reach a good number of friends to warrant it I will shut down the account and open a Page - I have no family following on Facebook, it is strictly for me as a model. The point of having a deviantArt account is to have enough space to put up my work as a model, especially the images I cannot add to my actual portfolio for one reason or another,  for people to see - and let's face it, compared to other portfolio hosting sites deviantArt is quite generous in terms of space allocation and reasonably affordable. I never really cared much about 'being an artist' and 'being with like minded people' only. As someone  reminded me of recently I belong to an 'archaic generation', which means that my modelling days are numbered.  The young person who said this  - not so young, mind you - seems to be forgetting that she is not exempt from the ravages of time and there is no guarantee she will look as good at my age to be able to continue pin up modelling then. But that is another story. The point is I would not have these accounts if I did not want my modelling work to be seen.
 There is a correlation between being paranoid and believing to be stalked. In fact paranoia begins with the recurring thoughts that someone is out there to get you, someone is constantly talking about you. What brings about paranoia? Oh a number of causes, including excessive weed smoking, says the Urban Dictionary - love the entries, they are quite hilarious.   Definitely material for another post.

(All photos modelled by Alex B and taken by David Holmes)