Why do they do it?
Sock Puppets
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Musings on the byways of popular culture
by 128 Comments
Why do they do it?
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Should we care?
What’s that Sooty? Raymond’s talking to himself..?
Oh nicely done. Have an up.
It’s not their fault, Raymond. They’re being manipulated.
At the end of the day, they stink,
Air Supply did it because they were all out of gloves.
You’ll do pretty much anything if you’ve got somebody’s hand up your arse.
I’ve found.
It’s a really interesting phenomenon, is sock-puppeting. Most people on the internet are pseudonymous already, so you wonder what extra layer of anonymity is provided by adopting more pseudonyms.
I might be being a bit naive here, but I don’t think we tend to get them on here, do we? I used – a long while back – to suspect that one of our controversialists was actually another regular who used one name to be normal and one to wind people up, but then came to think I was almost certainly wrong. And in any case, stopped caring.
My favourite case of sock-puppeting was the (I used to think) none-more-loathsome Johann Hari who, as well as fabricating his interview quotes, used to use Wikipedia sockpuppet accounts to slag off anyone who’d given him a bad write-up. But then I read So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson and came to feel a bit of sympathy for the deluded little prick. (I wouldn’t put the same behaviour past Owen Jones, mind.)
I think one of the main drivers for sockpuppetry is when there’s some tangible incentive. People posting reviews of their own books for example.
On a site like this there’s not so much reason to do it, other than – as you say – to adopt an alter ego to wind people up.
Or when people invest a bit too much of their self esteem into the place.
I reckon there are at least a couple on here.
OK it’s me again. For “real” this time.
Well, you might have warmed your hand first.
My Timex still works! That’s engineering for you.
Hmmm. I’m sensing a new business opportunity.
….And acute discomfort.
Oh, I think we do have sock puppets on the afterword. I recently set a little bait for one and I believe that s/he obligingly picked it up (on another thread, I hasten to add).
‘Who’ they are is one thing, but the more interesting topic -I believe- is ‘why’ they do it.
I, for one, am intrigued.
Me too. Spill, Raymond, you FIEND!
Shall we all retire to the drawing room so that Raymond ie Raymond Of The Yard, can elaborate on his suspicions…?
*lights go out*
*there is a gunshot*
Everyone dies
“I expect you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here today…”
(Am I the only one who’s never heard of this? Hands up who else thought we were talking about actual sock puppets?)
Me. I’m so not down with the cool dudes (middle-aged men) on this forum.
I only know the expression as I googled it when there was a very lively and a rather scary discussion about this on the AW a year or two back.
Basically it is someone adopting a bogus Internet identity for the purpose of deception.
As we are all more or less anonymous here, in the context of the AW, it would probably mean someone having more than one identity here.
I’m salwarpe, and so’s my wife.
Turn off the light and come to bed, darling.
So now I know what a sockpuppet is I’m starting to think you are ALL sockpuppets apart from me. In which case, who are you, why are you doing this to me and do I know you in real life?
Arthur, I just happen to be sitting in a car outside your house. It’s a complete coincidence! No need for paranoia!
PS) Heyyyy, nice garden gates!
Oh so it’s YOU. That’s all right then, I’m quite flattered.
Arthur, I just happened to follow Moosey to your house and I’m sitting in a car watching Moosey watch your house. It’s a complete coincidence that Moosey happened to end up outside your gaff. No need for paranoia!
I disagree about your gates though. Could do with a lick of paint.
I know just the feller. I can see him now in my rear view mirror.
Apparently, Lando Cakes is the alter ego of Disappointment Bob. Or is it the other way round ?
Bob was disappointed when someone told him there was no such place as a Land o’ Cakes.
But there is!
Really? I’d have visited more often had I known
Not sure this will stand up to close scrutiny. For example, in Scotland “marzipan” is when you plop a Mars bar into a pan of oil…
Psst, don’t tell anyone but I am BigJimBob’s sock puppet. in meat-time I am someone else.
The trousers will give you away.
Damn, and I would have got away with it, if it wasn’t for you kids.
So how does it work, then? Does one of the identities always sycophantically back up the other, or is it a Jeckyl and Hyde thing, with one nice and one nasty character?
I don’t really know.
And neither do I.
Ooh clever! A lovely little bit of mis-direction there Bur- CHIZ! Chiz! I meant Chiz of course!
Whoever’s doing this needs to have a word with himself.
“Does one of the identities always sycophantically back up the other”
No, that’s the just the regulars of the Afterword mingles.
There are a couple I have my suspicions about. They tend to be Mr Hyde and Mr Hyde.
“No, thatās the just the regulars of the Afterword mingles.”
(-:
Spot on.
I’m told the gap between Owsley and Man from Atlantis is as close as Rob Cs grasp on reality.
And don’t get me started on Burt Kokaine.
In fairness to Rob, those weren’t sockpuppets so much as attempts to start again afresh. (But then accidentally signing off with a “hari om” or a reference to basilisks and mandrake jam.)
Good comment Bob.
That’s the wonderful thing about you @RobC and I mean this as a compliment: you are instantly recognisable whichever nom de plum you might be using. No one writes like you.
The trail of boho chicks meandering with their mandrake jamjars towards your yurt gives you away every time!
Am I that instantly recognisable ?
Bollox Drat Shanti _/\_ x
Thanks for clearing that up Bob.
( Hmm. The sign offs were perhaps a bit of a giveaway upon reflection).
Torley Ponderer, another of the voices in Rob’s head
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r139/badartdog/klee-puppets-3_zpsxa5i1tf3.jpg
l-r Man from Atlantis, Rob C, Owlsley, Torley Ponderer.
Best laugh I’ve had all week. Have an enormous Up Mr Dog!
Wasn’t it Chorley Ponderer? Whatever, it was his best alias. “Rob C” too generic, like “Steve T”.
Distinct lack of luscious locks and I don’t rock the cord, and the turban needs to be purple.
Is anybody else looking at that and thinking it’s the result of a Limp Bizkit pre-tour thought shower?
I was channelling.
‘Man’ from Atlantis ? As if ! It was Dude From Atlantis ffs!
Backhanded compliment, dude. Patrick Duffy was buff in those Speedos.
Er, according to a woman I heard talking about it.
‘buff in Speedos’ ?
It’s a bit early, isn’t it ? Not quite midday here.
Buff in Speedos. TMFTL.
Keep up, we’ve discussed before. There are, in fact, only two people on this site. YOU and….me
Wanted: desperate for work thesps with a range extending from “baffled by life” to “why, oh why couldn’t the world have stayed in 1971 forever?” to play Internet bloggers at upcoming “mingle”. Fee: two slices of cake.
Now that’s an idea, actually. You could turn up at one of the meat-meets and say, Hi – I’m Bingo Little. See how much of his reputation you could shred over the course of eight pints.
In my case, I’d guess two pints should be more than sufficient.
I’m going to hire a suave, gregarious Clooney clone to play me at the mingles.
WTF! Marvelous!
Whenever we discuss sock puppets on the AW, things start to get very weird indeed.
One more from them: Goatee.
We love it when you get down wiv the kidz and use hip internet lingo like WTF. Especially when you add a “marvelous!” to it.
Like my old Norwegian friend who was once, er, *back in the day*, heard to say, ‘Crumbs, man.’
WTF! Marvelous!
I understand they are appearing at Latitude this year.
Or their Scottish Doctor Who obsessed counterparts (NSFW)
Thanks DFB! Hilarious.
As we have at least one AWer in Adelaide, I can’t resist posting this one of the Scottish Socks in Australia.
OK, it’s ‘fess up time. I know it was widely suspected (amongst the three or four people who gave it as much as a passing thought) that I used sock puppet aliases back at the Auld Place. And a significant proportion of that demographic (maybe thirty per cent) believe I still do. I don’t. I post here under the rubrics “H.P. Saucecraft” and “Chiz” like I’ve always done, as many here know already. Neither is a sock puppet for the other. They are discrete identities, each with their own voice. The differences in “time zone”, ISP etc. are part of the construct.
I hope this clears things up.
You’re Chiz? I feel betrayed, somehow…
Given HP’s well-documented admiration for the gorila of 3B, the curse of st custards, I suppose it should have been obvious really…
Well as this was a sockpuppet thread I gave it a passing thought yesterday at 18.24 (see above) and it seemed obvious to me.
As you’ll see, I just managed to stop myself Blurting it out.
Not to someone whose admiration for the gorila etc is equal to his, apparently…
It’s these crossover hours when both my characters are ‘awake’ that are hardest. I have to think of HP watching the sun sink into the Mekon after a hard day not writing anything, while Chiz struggles on his morning train to some dreary Whitehall desk job. I keep a post-it note on either side of my laptop to help me distinguish them. The one on the left is pink and says ‘caustic middle-aged misanthrope’. The one on the right is blue and says the same.
I keep the Afterword open in two tabs, which gives the the advantage of being able to jump seamlessly from one identity to the other, like this…
Voila!
Long shot, worth a punt.
I had to let Bingo in there. You know what he’s like.
As the sun sinks into the Mekon, I couldn’t resist. TMFTL
I’m a sock poppet in so far as I have two identities on here. This is me in an ‘official’ capacity for any technical/Admin issues and I post as Dr Volume when I’m just joining in with the discussion or posting stuff as ‘me’.
That said- if anyone should be tempted to post on here with multiple identities – be aware that I *do* know you’re doing it.
Sock poppet – that’s a very intriguing variation!
Something rather interesting happened here when the site crashed and those who so wished moved over and kept the AW flame alive on Facebook. Everything suddenly became a lot less anonymous.
I now know the real names of some of the contributors here and know a little about their life in the real world. Lots of really hilarious comments and observations that have brightened many a day.
It’s fun to interact with AWers about other kinds of stuff. Cuddly kittens, fluffy puppies, cake recipes, gardening tips etc.
And all that impacts positively on what goes on here.
Unfortunately I have forgotten some the AW pseudonyms of some of the cums I made there, and it’s not helped that I hardly use ghastly FB these days, I prefer TW, which doesn’t have the sinister obsequious machinations of the former, and I am also part of a TW discreet Gentlemen Head’s Club/Musical salon. Private and highly exclusive dontchaknow.
‘chums’ ffs ! Can we PLEASE have an edit function ???……
Freudian slip if ever there was one š
More like a Jungian Nightdress.
Anima rising? You be polite š
Er… Thanks !
( Has he gone ? Not bookmarked. File under ‘unlistenable’ along withJames Taylor, the whinge hippy balladrear. The only man who can turn ‘Here Comes The Sun’ into the aural equivalent of pre-suicide lament.
No he hasn’t, Philistine!
*excommunicates Rob, simultaneously pulling down his temple*
Blows raspberry, flips bird, and moons at Nigeldude, from a secret mountain cave deeps in the mountains of Tibet.
*blows kisses, puts food out for birds, sees Rob’s moon and raises with Uranus from the icy wastes of East Angular*
Well, now. All this is news to me: I truly had no idea that people would even want to be arsed having double, or even triple, identities.
I can’t believe Chiz is Saucy! This is just crazy…
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together
So, was Chiz once Cheesus? I hope so as he was always one of my favourites too!
That was me too. Captain Underpants, Cheesus, Drakeygirl, and now Chiz.
I liked us best as Drakeygirl.
Shut up, me!
No, YOU shut up!
While we’re on the subject, Chiz: the fragrant Camille- was that you as well?
Don’t fall for it. Together with Niscum, they are all sock ‘poppets’ of Tim the Admin, wheeled out whenever there is a lull in posts.
You probably didn’t realise it at the time, but his/their finest role was as Gollum/Smeagol in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He /They were on a percentage of the box office take and this funded the purchase of most of Thailand and a huge underground Whitehall bunker, which later featured as the Ministry of Magic in the Harry Potter films.
Fasts for a yuga via Easyportal timeshare, performs occult cleansing rituals, draws a Fabulous Furry Pentogram with magick crayons, cups nuts innit yo!, mwah mwah mwah widdershins thrice, summons forth Mellotron Elementals and Sitar Geni to banish the Joni/Taylor black stream boggarts, perfoms Tor top Fire Ritual and renders asunder astrologically themed sacred undercrackers in supplication to the Moon.
That should do it.
Amazing what you can achieve whilst waiting in the queue down the paper shop.
You actually….. queue… in ‘shops’…. amongst the hoi poloi, the great unpatchoulied ?…..
Well, no, of course not. But the man who delivers our provisions told one of the staff about it all.
Hmmm…….
‘Fraid not š
Pah !
INCOMING>>>>>>> kerBOOM kerSPLAZ !
Well played, sir!
Rob, you’re so predictable š
xxx
Satan’s very own elevator muzak. Goin’ down, baby !
(Utter tosh beloved of pseudo intellectuals, chinoed pony tailed lefties and oily cocktail lounge lizard sex pests)
Yeah….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGSXnFNq6sw
_I_ baby !
It simply isn’t right that we go through an entire sockpuppet thread without tipping our hats to one of the originals. Although judging by this clip she has been hanging around with one or more of the less salubrious Afterworders.
Oops wrong clip
Enough of this bunch of arrivistes. I’m the original, admit it or the dog gets it.
“That’s what you get for squealing, you red-nosed bastard!”
Nah, sorry Vulps . Simply not a sock puppet.
If we are talking Sooty show, this was a sock puppet.
http://www.thesootyshow.org/introduction/ramsbottom1.png
That Ramsbottom character was in danger of becoming the Scrappy Doo of the show. Harry Corbett had retired but wanted to keep his hand in (!!!) so he was the voice for “Ramsbottom” – a plain-speaking Yorkshire-based snake. At live shows, Sweep got most of the laughs and Sooty and Butch (‘ello Tosh!) also got a few laughs. But Ramsbottom was faecal in appearance and this was hard to overcome. His tone was parental and prone to censure – as a result, the kids found laughter hard to come by when he was around. Sweep developed bitterness towards Ramsbottom because night after night he was required to rescue the show after “that fucking snake” stunk up the auditorium again with his casual racism and his kids-today-don’t-know-they’re-born patter. There’s no such thing as a likeable turd and it nearly cost The Sooty Show everything.
Scrappy Doo? Things must have been bad. A magnificently tragi-comic tale of an old trouper who doesn’t known when to stop, BC.
It sounds like an Alan Bennett monologue just waiting to be written,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpXP8abAv_w
Sock puppets, a dollar or two
Just tell me, how many for you
This time?