11 Sep
2006

















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     Baiting and bad manners

Today's New York Times reports on an incident in which a graphic designer - they are strange, those creatives, straaaange - appropriated someone else's ad seeking a sexual relationship, gathered responses from men who thought they were offering themselves to a desirable woman, and then placed those responses online for all to see.

Designer Jason Fortuny, whose ostentatiously self-satisfied blog is tagged "Getting away with everything you can only dream of", went beyond traditional 'sex baiting' by posing as a 27 year old woman in desperate & dateless Seattle and then publishing 179 responses, replete with 145 photos of men "in various states of undress", email and instant messaging addresses, names, phone numbers and other contact information. Enthusiasts for smutty talk and snaps of throbbing gristle can do their own googling for more detail.

Fortuny reportedly did not immediately respond to emails from Associated Press and callers to his phone number unsurprisingly heard a message saying the subscriber "is not in service". However a quick perusal of Fortuny's blog suggests that he isn't seriously abashed, although he's now deleted his contact details, supposedly after receiving the usual threats. Indeed he's publicly sought advice from an adult content entrepreneur, saying "Let's milk this. All the way ... There must be a way to combine this. Into money. Money is important. Money is good". Perhaps he's been reading too much Andy Warhol.

All in all it's as charming as geeks biting the heads off live chickens and not justifiable on the basis that 'they asked for it', as his respondents - however unwise - didn't expect to be contacting a man who'd place their messages online for public derision. Fortuny gets 15 hours of online fame, an appearance in major newspapers, emulation by other nasties and discussion in numerous academic papers now that the herd has moved on from Jennicam in search of dissertation fodder.

Scope for action by his victims is unclear: he's breached their copyright and privacy but it is unlikely that they will prove sufficient damage to persuade a US court to order punishment on a scale that will deter copycats..




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