In an attempt to stimulate my interest in Internet predators, I decided to go undercover as a 15-year-old female girl named Mermaid Johnson from Ithaca to speak with an older age male to see whether or not he was going to hit on me. I entered a yahoo! chat room for single males to pursue my plan. My plan eventually worked over the course of 2 days on a 30 year old male from Jersey (Mark) but don’t worry, I told him that I had a boyfriend and that my dad was a cop; he hasn’t spoken to me since.
The interesting part about the encounter is that he, rather than Mermaid initiated the conversation and after his first words “How’s it going, cutie pie,” I thought he was a jerk and therefore the expected valence of this episode was negative in the locus of other (Mark) and positive in the locus of self (Me, Saidu). Mermaid, however, thought that this guy was pretty cool and therefore, I felt his goal for the episode became setting a ground to potentially “maximize his rewards” with Mermaid. My goal, however became to maximize my reward of getting him to say sexually explicit words to me while minimizing my costs of actually developing a relationship with this man that can get me in trouble.
Since my goals were as such, I asked him questions about what he did as a career to show that I had somewhat of an interest in him. I found out that he is a personal trainer and eventually he mentioned to me that he has “huge muscles all over his body.” At this point, I knew that I had him in my grasp and my interactional strategy was to lead him on until I felt he was about to “make moves” with Mermaid. I responded with “oooooh, all over your body, eh?” He responded with “of course, honey…I can show you if you let me.” Since I am a religious watcher of Dateline NBC and have seen the “to catch a predator” series on TV and online a number of times, I knew what the next step was and I did not want to see the next step. I am referring to him sending pictures of his genitals to Mermaid and did not want to see them. Since I had already accomplished the task of this assignment, I decided to cut him loose in the following way:
Mermaid: So, are you going to send me a pic of your muscles?
Mark: u sure bet
Mermaid: oooh, I’m not sure if my dad or my boyfriend would like that
Mark: wait, u have a boyfriend? U never told me that
Mermaid: I never knew what your plans were but now that I do, I think that’s kinda creepy
Mark: Come on, you know I wouldn’t do anything like that to you
Mermaid: OK, let me talk to my dad about this to make sure…he’s a cop
(end conversation)
I will say that the space definitely affected the presentation of self since I was in a room for single males. Since I knew that this man was fairly desperate for “love,” I began to present myself as a person who wanted to be educated. Although I never stated this fact explicitly, I showed interest in him and that was enough for him to build an attraction towards me. I knew that the mediation of the synchronous chat room would make it easier for me to accomplish my goal. I felt bad doing this but this lets you know some of the sick and sadistic acts that take place in chat rooms all over the country.
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9 comments:
Great post! Firstly, I am extremely surprised that your conversation with Mark carried on for two days. This exemplifies how simple it is for individuals to converse and develop relationships online. While face-to-face encounters require both individuals to find the time and place to meet in order to conduct a conversation, your experience with Mark displays how computer-mediated communication facilitates the development of a relationship. In this case, the efficiency of communication seems to have made up for the lack of cues in your communication.
Secondly, I was surprised at how enthusiastic Mark was to converse and divulge information (and visuals) with Mermaid, upon learning that she was a 15-year-old girl. I am curious as to whether or not the same people who find it OK to talk to young girls online, would ever follow through with such interactions in a situation that required face-to-face communication.
I think you did a great job exemplifying the concept of online deception, and how easy it is to do.
Hi You!
At the start of this assignment, I too attempted to enter a chat room as a 13-year-old girl, hoping that some creepy guy would react in a way similar to what I had seen on various news programs and television shows. Although I was not a persistent as you, I think the first interesting point to note is how hard it is to actually find these so called “predators” in chat rooms. I went in to the experience expecting it to be a very easy task, yet I found that most of the time after revealing my age, people got weirded out and asked me what I was doing exploring chat rooms. They later had no real interest in talking to me.
A second point, or rather question, I have for you is how you decided upon Mermaid Johnson as your name. Because one’s online name is such an important portion of impression management, I find it very interesting that you choose such an out there first name, and generic last name. Is there a reason as to why you did this? Or did you not think about your name and the impression a name makes before choosing one?
Overall it was a great post!
Congrats! First post to make me crack a smile by the end of it. I think it was quite interesting that you went into the assignment already assuming that some older guy was going to hit on you (and the fact that it held true only after a couple days really tells us something about our society >_>). Not only was your post entertaining, but your analysis using O'Sullivan's model was quite spot-on as well. Why exactly do you think that an encounter like this is possible (or predictable, even) in a medium like this?
I think one of the things that really attracts me to your post is your actual follow through from the beginning of the encounter to the end. Even Mark's reaction to your "escape route" (boyfriend + daddy cop), shows the predictability of the way people react in society. What made him run away or end the conversation just because you made these comments? He seemed to think you were "attracted" to him, and if the anonymity were able to shield him, why the fear or the aversion?
Great post again. Looking forward to your others! :)
Hey,
I'm also a fan of to catch a predator so I find your little experiment to be very interesting. You seemed to have put a lot of work into catching this guy if you talked to him for 2 days. I wonder how you handled mermaid's impressions when your own must have been negative knowing he was a scumbag. You used a variety of self-presentational tactics to accomplish your task successfully. Obviously you changed your self description to make yourself a 15 year old girl, you might have taken a more immature attitude to make yourself seem younger. You must’ve used many non-verbal behaviors like emoticons and punctuations to show interest. You also probably associated yourself with common things a young girl might enjoy. Also when you ended your experiment you socially associated yourself with your so called father as a policeman which clearly was done successfully as he left soon after. Well done!
I recently read a rolling stone article about the shows to catch a predator and other organizations that hold those types of stings. I was shocked to learn that the activities of these groups and dateline specials constitutes entrapment. Its as if they're framing the men who speak to these girls online . I also read how the public humiliation experienced by some caught on the shows caused them to live very emotionally scarred lives. One man killed himself. Most of the men exposed on these shows aren't predators, their just lonely or frustrated and what not. These shows that try to attack online predators stand on shaky moral ground themselves. Hiring a girl to flirt with men online is deceptive in the first place. The rolling stone article was saying how in most cases the people chatting working for the investigation were the ones who convinced the men to come meet them. If they didn't try so hard to
get the men to fall into their trap, the conversations wouldn't escalate beyond harmless smalltalk. I say that such matters should be let in the hands of real police and not a dateline special who isn't qualified to identify a real predator.
Lauren!
That's a very good question! I chose Mermaid as a first name because I knew it was one that would attract attention. I didn't want to be the one who initiated conversation so I waited in the chat room about 3-4 hours until someone greeted Mermaid. I created a normal last name since I didn't want him to get suspicious. He actually mentioned something like "your parents chose a lovely name for a lovely person like yourself" (paraphrased).
Eric,
I read a similar article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/13/news/justice.php
I am the type of person who looks at all sides of the issue before I make any conclusion. As a future broadcast journalist, I study others and strive to be the most ethical journalist out there. This is part of the reason why I am interested in seeing how unethical some professionals can be. As much as I respect Chris Hansen, I would never do a show like this because some innocent people do get jail sentences who don't deserve them for similar issues. Look at Genarlow Wilson. I will say, however, that although the police don't compensate perverted justice or NBC, they do work along side of them and end up arresting the people who end up going to the house. On the show, they make it clear that the issue is completely in the police's hands after the "predator" leaves the house.
From reading the aforementioned article, I, too question some of the tactics news programs use to catch these predators.
I will say, however, rather than trying to lure someone in, I simply sat in a chat room for a while and allowed someone to initiate conversation with me. Now, I'm sure he didn't see my 15/f/ny post earlier so after a brief introduction, I reminded him that Mermaid was 15 and he continued to speak with her. This proves that even though there are some kids who are in chat rooms that they shouldn't be in, there are people who are desperate for love and would pursue a child just to get some.
Great question. You definately made me think some. Much respect.
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