Fear of discovery

[brimtoast]

I feel like we should talk about this, in the light of yesterday's Last.fm scare and aftermath

I've thought a lot about fear of discovery, since one of my very earliest experiences in the world of podfic was seeing my favorite reader take down all her work because she was feeling too much anxiety at the thought of it being found.

My opinion, which seems not to be shared by many people, is that voices are not distinct enough for this to be a genuinely scary prospect (although if some people have extremely uncommon accents or voices, this would apply less to them). I feel like someone could discover my podfic, listen to it, bring it to me saying "IS THIS YOU?" (Actually, I have a lot of trouble imagining that step. I'm guessing they'd be too uncertain and embarrassed-if-they-were-wrong to actually ask) and I could say, "Nope, definitely not me. They do sound a lot like me, though! Weird." And nobody would argue or push the matter further.

And so I think that even though podfic feels more personally identifying because it's my voice, the fear of discovery is more a paranoia than a reasonable fear. I've heard people say podfic readers sounded "just like" their best friend, high school librarian, another reader they heard on a different site (this one was directed to me, and I never read for that site, so I know the person I sound "just like" was not actually myself). For most of us, there are people out there in the world with voices similar enough to ours to give us plenty of plausible deniability.

What do other people think?

Comments

[paraka]

I think you have a good point about how you could still deny it's you if someone tried to confront you about podfic. I've listened to my podfics, and I've listened to recordings of myself simply talking and they actually sound surprisingly different. I found the same thing about you when you responded to my email verbally. I could pick up hints of your podfic style but it wasn't the same overall. Same when I met anatsuno, revolutionaryjo and lunate8. I didn't immediately connect their speaking voice with their podficing voice and I knew they who they were.

That said, I suppose I might be slightly more vulnerable to this, since I actually volunteer for Voice Print so my "reading voice" is publicly out there under my real name too. I guess, for me, I just think that the chances of someone caring enough to try and draw those connections are pretty slim. Or even if they were drawn, if the people around me would care. I remember when I first got into fandom my mom asked to see one of my vids (she didn't finish watching it though because it was a Queer as Folk vid and it made her uncomfortable. She asked me if I was making porn *rolls eyes*). I'll talk to my boss and coworkers about my podfic (well, we call them audiobooks but still).

So, I've probably blown any plausible deniabilty options. Still, I would totally defend what I do and if someone wanted to give me trouble for it in RL then I would take the hits and move on. That said, I'm very lucky to be able to do this. My job isn't as sensitive to this, I live in a culture that won't judge me too much for what I do. I know not everyone is as lucky.

I was talking with choose2live last night about what I feel my risks are of being outed. Honestly, I think the chances of someone in my RL discovering that I'm paraka online are fairly slim. Although I don't make a huge effort to hide my fannishness so I guess it's more a case of, they'd have to care to look. There's probably more danger of someone online outing me (I would like to think no one would do that but I know too many people that it has happened to, to think it never happens). Right now if you Google my names, they're not connected in any way. In fact, if you Google my real name, you don't get me at all (or, I gave up after page 50 of the search I figure most people will give up sooner). I would be a lot more nervous if the two were connected (if I try googling both my names at the same time, it changes "paraka" to "parka" :P).

I've heard people say podfic readers sounded "just like" their best friend, high school librarian
Heh, I recognize those examples. In fact, I'm one of them, right?
Did I ever tell you about the time I was on the phone with a coworker and I thought they might be you? This was before we really knew each other but I was on the phone with one of my account reps and was so distracted the entire call thinking they sounded like you. As soon as I got off the phone I jumped over to your journal to see if you listed where you live in your profile. Obviously, the coworker wasn't you but it was a totally weird experience.