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

[anatsuno]

I am ambivalent about this - I don't feel worried but it's more because I'm very open and out about slash, porn, fic and podfic, than because I think my voice is not actually /that/ recognizable. I think probably my accent would be? It tends to be 'unique' (though maybe all accents are and it's a folly to say that)... I don't know.

I mostly wanted to comment quickly to say that this post would benefit from a link to this post on the last.fm thing; otherwise it might seem obscure to some of the readership here! :D

[roga]

I think it also probably depends on how open you are about your life in your journal. Like, if someone suspected they knew you, they'd click on your LJ and see that it's empty, but other people might have other clues -- where they live, posts about their life and what they do, so if someone suspects it can pretty much confirm that. However, I don't know how probable it is that someone you know will DL a podfic you recorded and recognize your voice to begin with. It's a small comfort that if someone did do that, then the person who recognized them would probably be someone whose into fandom to begin with -- like, I assume the chances of your mom downloading random American Idol podfic isn't that high. But I can also visualize situations where that would be ore problematic, so... I do not know :-)

ETA: okay, and I just clicked the link to the last.fm thing, so forget that last part about needing to be in fandom to get to podfic :/

[torachan]

The only way I could see it being a problem is if someone has a lot of already identifying info on their journal and someone puts that together with the voice. But...if they already have enough stuff on their journal to identify them and are afraid of being found out, then they already need to make a change and lock stuff down, totally unrelated to any last.fm business.

If it's just the voice itself, though, I doubt any podfic reader has a voice so unique that it could only be them without any other context.

[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.

[jesse_the_k]

I IDed general_jinjur in the WisCon lobby from her voice. Well, that was my first clue, and then the eyeshadow.

(IOW, nothing meaningful to contribute.)

[choosetolive]

So, I'm totally new to this realm and have only begun to think about these issues as a podficcer. But I've been having fascinating discussions with paraka on these topics, and so want to share my two cents.

In general, I completely agree with what you're saying here. Odds of someone actually connecting podfic to one's RL self, absent any other identifying information, are pretty damn slim and there's definitely plausible deniability. There may be exceptions, but overall, yeah.

Also, I agree with what paraka says about one's "reading voice" often being different from one's speaking voice. This is definitely true with me - part of the reason I want to podfic is I want to train myself to speak more clearly; more slowly with better enunciation. At least right now, I'm definitely reading differently than I speak in conversation. And while this may not be as true of others, I bet it's true more often than not.

Now that I'm done with the head-nodding part, I think one's fear of discovery is always going to be highly subjective, based on whatever situations they're in IRL. Personally, I'm not really in a position where discovery would be that harmful. Yeah, it'd be really awkward if my mom heard it, but beyond that... it won't hurt me professionally, or personally beyond it being a bit awkward. Therefore, my fear level is pretty low. But I'm not a kindergarten teacher in Minnesota. (ack, tonight at dinner family friends were urging me to get into politics. If I did THAT, I'd want to disappear this stuff. Good thing I'm not planning on it. :p)

However, I think there needs to be some consideration as to the responsibility of the reader. I think this is an excellent point and very true:

Fandom is sadly very good at pretending (and making people believe) that it's possible to be out there, out here, and never have any data about your very existence and activity make it out into the world at large.

As someone who is voluntarily putting my own voice on the internet reading porn, I'm the one who's ultimately responsible for the risk. There's a certain level of courtesy I should be able to expect from fellow fans, but that's not something I can bank on. And as someone familiar enough with the internet to be participating in fandom, I'm most likely aware that it's extremely easy for one's work to be duplicated, referenced, linked to, and otherwise taken out of my control. That's pretty basic internet knowledge. In fact, it's arguably what I want done with my work - I put it on a public forum so other people can enjoy it, and the more accessible it is, presumably the more people are enjoying. I don't like the idea of forfeiting control over it, as would happen if it were archived/duplicated without my permission, but it's a risk I have to be prepared to take.

So at the end of the day, if my life/career/relationships can be affected in a way I'm not willing to deal with because of my fandom activity, I shouldn't participate in the fandom activity. Now, that sucks; I don't like the idea of having to curb my own enjoyment because of the possible consequences. But actions have consequences, and if I'm going to take that action, I need to at the very least be willing to gamble that I won't face the most negative consequences, or will be able to deal with them when they come.

Sometimes, there are unforeseen consequences. Sometimes, I'm unaware of the potential consequences when I take the initial action. That's valid. Then, I have to act on the new knowledge in the way I think is best - which might include taking down podfic. But I should still take action once the new knowledge comes into play, instead of hoping that the consequences won't occur and then doing a last-minute scramble or getting caught with my pants down.

Sometimes the last-minute scramble is all I've got. And then I have to suck it up and realize that perhaps I shouldn't have made the original choice, I learn and deal and go on.

By virtue of the nature of the internet, we're all entrusting our work into the hands of the public. And even if nobody in fandom ever archives/duplicates without our permission - there's still things like the Wayback Machine. The idea that we can put our work online and retain total control about how it's distributed is an illusion, and something all creators of fanworks (or any material published online) have to be willing to face.

[tinypinkmouse]

If anyone who knows me in RL listened to my podfics I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be hard at all to figure out it's me (but I can't really see most of those people listening to podfic). I do have something of a distinct accent and what's more there's a short podfic that I've read in English, Finnish, Swedish and also my very distinct dialect of Swedish. So anyone who knows anything about those languages shouldn't have much trouble figuring out I'm Finnish and with the addition of my dialect... yeah, narrow it down to very specific region of Finland. I didn't think about that when I did it, not until someone actually did connect the dots, though not someone who knows me in RL so they still didn't know who I am. Thankfully it doesn't really matter to me much if I'm discovered (if it did I probably would have realised how easy I was making it for people).

To be honest I have a bit of trouble understanding why it's so horrible to some people if they were connected to their fannish existence. I can see it could be a bit awkward, but... I mean it's not that I don't get the reasons when someone explains them to me, I just don't have any personal experience of that kind of situation. I just can't imagine any kind of serious consequences for me, neither in personally or professionally (well, I did start studying again, so maybe I'll feel differently some day). I mean I ran my reading of an nc-17, non-con, wincest podfic through my mom and dad before posting it to find out if I sound normal while reading it (to be fair, neither of them are fluent in English so I can't say how much of it they'd get, I was checking my tone of voice not the content).

[phi]

That's not something that's worried me since i started dipping my toes into podfic. But then, I grew up all over the US, and quickly developed the skill (it was a defense mechanism at the time) of being able to modulate my accent and speaking rhythms to match whoever I was talking to. I don't have a single 'voice' that is unambiguously mine, and the voice I use for podfic doesn't sound much like my speaking to friends voice or my professional voice.

And well, I have some internet friends who I've trusted with my legal name & mailing address, and some RL friends who I've trusted with my fandom identity (and some internet friend who live in my city, so I've invited them to my parties with college and work and church friends). So I'm already taking a much bigger risk than just having my voice online.

[aethel]

I'd agree that voices are hard to identify. Even if they sound distinctive or familiar (e.g. in animated films with big name film stars doing the voices), I find it difficult to figure out who they are. The chances of someone I know IRL listening to one of my few podfics (why?) and identifying me (how?) are slim.

It was a little strange to see my fan name on last.fm, but I actually had to search for it, and it doesn't reveal anything that isn't already on the Audiofic Archive. I'll be sure not to put identifying information into the metadata on podfic files....