The estimated reading time for this post is 7 minutes
As The Wonder of Tech nears its third anniversary, I think back to the excitement I felt about sharing my knowledge of personal technology with others and learning about running a website and blogging. I was very fortunate to have the help of many friends, including one of my very best friends, Rachel Anderson, who guided me in setting up this website, advising me to use WordPress as a blogging platform, steering me toward an aesthetically pleasing design, and even letting me use her account to host my website for free.
Rachel got me started in the right direction with The Wonder of Tech so I didn’t have to worry about a steep learning curve for website administration and could focus on writing about apps, social media, gadgets, smartphones and other fun and useful tech.
How fitting that Rachel helped me launch this website because I met Rachel on the Internet. We connected through a forum for fans of All My Children and chatted online for months, then met in person at a fan event for Vincent Irizarry in New York City. Within a few hours of meeting her, I invited her to stay at our home for a week.
Imagine my husband’s delight when I informed him that a friend I met on the Internet would be living with us and our three daughters for a full week. When he protested, I informed him:
“But she’s really nice!”
Shockingly, my husband, though unconvinced, agreed to my folly. I’m not quite sure how Rachel convinced her husband that it was a good idea for her to travel 5000 miles to stay at a stranger’s house for a week, but he must have enthusiastically endorsed the trip. Rachel arrived on our doorstep with a big smile on her face and no visible weapons in hand.
Rachel and her family have since become very close with our family, our husbands and children are great friends, and we visit each other as much as possible despite our busy schedules. I now know how to run a website and have my own hosting account. But Rachel’s help in guiding me with the launch of The Wonder of Tech was invaluable in getting me off to a strong start.
I Am Setting a Horrible Example for My Children
As the mother of three teenage girls, I realize that my friendship with Rachel sets a horrible example for them. No, I don’t cook crystal meth, send my girls to forced labor camps, or otherwise engage in child abuse. But my warnings about meeting strangers on the Internet must sound quite hollow to my daughters.
Oops, I Did It Again
In addition to learning about administering a website, I also had to learn about running a blog when I launched The Wonder of Tech. The best way to learn is to learn from the best so after I began this blog I started reading other blogs and discovered Adrienne Smith, the Queen of Blogging a/k/a Engagement Superstar.
If you’re not a blogger you may not know Adrienne Smith but if you are a blogger, you should get to know her. Adrienne blogs about blogging (including tech tips!) and knows how to do it right. Following her lead is a great idea if you want to have a successful blog.
Not only is Adrienne a superstar blogger, but she has also become an amazing friend. She always takes time to help me with my blogging questions and we have developed a true friendship online over the past three years.
So when my family planned a trip to Houston, Texas last year, my first thought was, “Yea! I want to meet Adrienne in person!” My family knew of Adrienne from my frequent praise of her so they were game to meet her in person as well. A few days after Christmas, we flew to Houston and met Adrienne. Big hugs for everyone!
I had discussed with Adrienne ahead of time how I felt conflicted by sending mixed messages to my daughters about not meeting online friends in person so Adrienne duly warned my girls not to try this themselves. I hope they learn from Adrienne better than they learn from me…
Catfishing
While my friendships with Rachel and Adrienne show that meeting online friends in person can have a positive result, not all real-life meetings go smoothly. Actuality often doesn’t match the perception. Many people have been duped by false online personalities, created to fool others into believing a fictional character is a real person: Catfishing.
That’s right, some people who live a double life on Facebook may not be using their real persona but instead have created a false character with the intent to deceive others. From the stories on Dateline’s To Catch a Predator to Manti Te’o’s fake dead girlfriend, we have learned that people aren’t always who they seem to be online.
In 2010 the documentary movie Catfish told the story of Nev Schulman who was deceived by false online Facebook accounts created by Angela Wesselman. Nev’s brother Ariel and fellow filmmaker Henry Joost documented Nev’s journey of uncovering the true story behind 8-year-old “Abby”, a gifted painter who contacted Nev on Facebook and asked to create a painting from one of his photos.
“Vince Pierce: They used to tank cod from Alaska all the way to China. They’d keep them in vats in the ship. By the time the codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless. So this guy came up with the idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them and the catfish will keep the cod agile. And there are those people who are catfish in life. And they keep you on your toes. They keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh. And I thank god for the catfish because we would be droll, boring and dull if we didn’t have somebody nipping at our fin.” — Catfish Quotes, IMDb
See, Who Coined the Term “Catfish”?, Aisha Harris of Slate.
I am not immune to Catfishing. During my first year of blogging, I was duped by a woman who claimed to be a blogger from Los Angeles. She was a frequent visitor and commenter here at The Wonder of Tech. She wrote a blog and asked me and other fellow bloggers to write guest posts for her, which I did.
Soon after my guest post was published she wrote me and other bloggers to let us know that she had been using a false identity to write for the blog which was run by a business. The business decided to end the blog and she wanted to reveal her true identity and true nationality so we could support her with her new blog. I didn’t support her new blog.
See, It’s catfishing season! How to tell lovers from liars online, and more by Molly McHugh of Digital Trends.
Poll
Can you relate to my experiences? Have you ever met an online friend in real life? Vote in The Wonder of Tech poll and let us know!
Your Thoughts
Have you ever met someone from your online world in real life? Are you ever conflicted about what to tell your kids? Have you ever been catfished by someone online? Let us know in the Comments section below!
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Consumer Electronics Show 2014 News
The annual Consumer Electronics Show is underway in Las Vegas, Nevada this week with plenty of news and new stuff for tech fans. Each year CES gives us a sneak peek of what’s ahead for the world of tech.
Hang w/
The innovative folks at Hang w/ continue to bring new personalities to their live streaming social media platform. In the unlikely event that you aren’t already at CES, you can join in on the fun with Hang w/ who will be streaming live from the event later today. Check-in with fellow tech blogger Robert Scoble as he lives streams on Hang w/ from 7-9 PM PST tonight.
See, Hang w/ – Who Knew the World Was This Much Fun? for my full review of Hang w/.
Pebble Steel
The Pebble smartwatch has a new design launched at CES this week: Pebble Steel. With a higher-end look and price, the Pebble Steel operates the same way as the original Pebble watch but now comes in stainless steel and black matte models. Both models come with leather and steel straps and are fully compatible with Pebble apps.
The Pebble Steel sells for $249, $100 more than the original Pebble watch. You can find out more about Pebble Steel from the Pebble website.
See, Pebble Watch – A Smartwatch with Potential for my full review of the Pebble watch.
Hello; I have met several people in person that were first online friends. I met all of them through online dating services. My most recent experience was very good having found a long term new friend out of it. The earlier experiences weren’t actually disappointing. One it turned out they had other things scheduled that day and felt guilty taking the time away. another thought that i had misrepresented myself but as a blind person i honestly thought I had ben honest with them. I would do it again and am jalous that you have met our sweet adrienne in person. I live in houston, but its not a great city for those who don’t drive. smile thanks for sharing. And remember you can tell your daughters you at least met these people in public places or in a group. If you can’t set the perfect example at least you can show them how to be as safe as possible when meeting strangers from the internet. Thanks for another great post, max
Hi Max, It sounds as if your experiences in meeting online friends in real life has been mostly positive, which is very good news. You’re right, online dating is an excellent example of meeting people in real life whom you met online first. Most people want to show the world their best, but there is a difference between posting flattering pictures of yourself versus posting pictures of someone else. With catfishing, people do the latter.
Yes, I was very fortunate to meet Adrienne. She’s a beautiful person online who is even more beautiful in person, inside and out. Her positive energy could generate Las Vegas, she just glows with warmth. I also got to meet her nephew who is an incredible person as well.
Good point, I have met my online friends at public places, which is a safer way to arrange a meeting. My girls laugh about how I’m setting a bad example for them and so far they promise not to follow in my footsteps. I require that they must have met someone in person to be friends with them on Facebook. They have to know their Facebook friends from school or camp to connect with them.
Thank you for your kind words and your comment, Maxwell.
hi carolyn; sorry i missed the earlier post about living a double life on face book. Seems like you got two posts out of this subject so far. smile Those are good rules for your daughters. I won’t meet anyone in person without having at least two of my friends investigate their online profiles. This is because I can honestly admit that it would be easier to fool me than some others. This is partly because of a lack of vision and partly because of my generally trusting nature. Social media sites especially fb aren’t completely accessible with a screen reader and there are some parts of a profile or their activity i may miss. I wouldn’t have any reservations about meeting adrienne. And i think that would apply to most of my other amazing blogging friends. take care, max
Hi Maxwell, That is a very wise approach to meeting online friends in real life. An Internet search can be a helpful source of information about a person’s background.
I also met an online friend in real life when we got our puppy Astro. Through an online forum on the mixed breed of Cavachons I discovered a woman who adopted Astro’s sister, Molly. We met in person and became good friends. I didn’t do an Internet search of her before I met her and I wish I had because I would have discovered that she was somewhat of a public figure.
Yes, I would like to meet other blogging friends in real life too, but as my experience with the faux blogger shows, even an Internet search and a blogging background don’t insure that what you read online is what you get in person. Meeting someone in person involves risk, but then again so is a lot of life.
hi carolyn; you are right there is risk in everything. It is not always to our safety or financial well being but it could just b risk to having our feelings hurt. and often public figures don’t want to b treated like rock stars in their every day life, so i think you were probably better off not knowing. and thanks to the guy who didn’t pay me for selling the carousel we now check backgrounds on sellers such as a google search and checking with the better business bureau to spot th obvious ones. if we had checked in advance on the carousel owner we would have known that he had a d minus rating with the bob and lots of negative comments on review sites. i tend to feel pretty safe with bloggers and dog owners. smile tai care, max
Good point, Maxwell. Often a simple search on the Internet can alert you to a person’s deceptive ways. But in the case of the blogger who fooled both Adrienne and me, she covered her tracks quite well. If she hadn’t confessed, we may never have known that she was scamming us.
Hi Carolyn; I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse that my heroes with more experience than me could get scammed or that someone was so good at it that they only got found out because they confessed. Its probably a good reminder to be cautious when meeting people that you have gotten to know online. And you know a couple of the people I met came to the house when it was just me and penny. I guess i was not worried because I am a guy and used to be huge. but I know that is no guarantee of protection and I will be more careful in the future. take care, max
Yes, Maxwell, please be careful in the future. Make sure you meet people in public places such as a police station parking lot!
Hey Carolyn,
Love the post and I SO enjoyed meeting you and your awesome family when you came through Houston last month. Spending time with you all was such a joy and I will admit that everyone I’ve met in person from only having known them online has worked out really well.
About three years ago now I met a lady and her husband who were in town for a convention. We of course had an online relationship and since they were going to be in town I really wanted to meet her. I drove out to their hotel and had dinner with them both and that just tightened the friendship we had already been forming. We’re still friends today.
I also met another man who I chatted with not as much online actually but he was looking to move and wanted to check out Houston so I met him for lunch. He turned out to be another really great guy and decided to stay here in Texas and is currently still living outside San Antonio.
I met another lady that I had met online who had a dating website. We had lunch together as well and although we couldn’t actually help each other I knew of someone who wrote for that niche. I introduced them both online and my friend became a writer for her site.
They don’t all turn out that well as you duly noted since I was also duped by the same lady you were. I was so very disappointed when I found out she wasn’t who she had claimed to be and I also stopped supporting her as well. Luckily we never met in person.
I do think it’s important though to really check these people out and of course you and I had some online chats as well as phone conversations too so our friendship has been building over time.
Thanks for sharing this story and I’m so thrilled I got to meet not only you but the entire family and I hope it won’t be the last time either. By the way, tell them all I said hello.
Have a great week.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, Yes, my entire family was so thrilled to meet you, thank you so much for taking a chance and getting together with us. You’re right, having talked to you on the phone and having had video chats with you on Google Hangouts, I felt as if I knew you already.
You have some great examples of how meeting online friends in real life worked out well. I hope that all of your future meetings are equally as enriching.
So you got duped by her too? I’m sorry that happened to you, though I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who was fooled by her. She was very crafty at creating her online personality, so good that she expected us to support her after she ‘fessed up to her deception.
I look forward to seeing you again in person, Adrienne, and hope you get a chance to visit us up North some day (though preferably on a day where the temp is above single digits!).
I knew you were a pop star in disguise, Carolyn, what a funny post!
I have met three online friends so far, two living in London and one in Rome. On all three occasions it proved to be a pleasure (hope for them as well!) , I will admit to having had some queasy feelings about it before but they had more to do with my shyness than with any fears.
Hi Barbara, I’m not quite a pop star, but I felt as if I met one in meeting Adrienne as she is pretty famous online. She didn’t act like a star though, just a very fun person!
I’m so glad your experiences meeting online friends in real life went so well, Barbara, especially since you traveled so far to meet them.
I hope all of your future real life meetings go well too!
Hi Carolyn, actually YES, I’ve met a few and it’s been all good. I met Samantha Gluck 2 years ago and we keep in touch. I’ve met a few others locally at tweep ups and it’s really cool to meet. I ‘ve meet a couple of others this past summer at an event and it was great to put a real face to the Twitter pics and tweets that go back and forth daily. I didn’t realize you met Adrienne in person, that is so COOL! It is funny how we don’t want our children to do it but yet we do. Hopefully they will understand it’s an age thing, after 21 or 30 it’s not so bad, right?
Hi Lisa, You’re right, it was so cool to meet Adrienne in person! I highly recommend it if you ever get to Houston. In fact, bloggers should consider traveling to Houston just to meet her, she’s that great!
I’m glad your real life meetings have gone so very well, Lisa. You’re right, being older does give you a better perspective on which people might be catfishing. But Adrienne and I were both fooled by a blogger who pretended to be someone she wasn’t.
So there are no guarantees but life isn’t without risk, right? I hope your real world meetings continue to go well, Lisa!
Carolyn, thank you my dear & amazing friend!!! What a wonderful article you wrote. 🙂 I’m not sure I deserved all the compliments you assigned me, but it was (and is) a definite two-way street. You are a beautiful soul with a HUGE heart & receptive personality. You have the uncanny ability to make someone feel welcome & loved with the first conversation! Our friendship developed because of those very qualities and traits you so generously shared with me & my family from day one. So for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! With the pervasive prevalence of social media in everyone’s lives these days, I predict more initial meetings & encounters will be made online vs. in person? Thus, it all boils down to (1) being open to a potential connection; and (2) developing good judgment in deciding whether to pursue that connection, and to what degree? So we are, in actuality, a good example for your kids. 🙂 They now have the “positive result” as the control test comparison if/when someone “catfishes” them in the future. We reaped the benefits of good judgment, kismet, and luck and are friends for life. We also can’t forget the inadvertent role Vincent Irizarry played in it all? Prior to joining FOVI, I was NOT interested in gathering together (online or otherwise) to support anyone, so he gets credit for bringing me online in the first place. It’s amazing how life works in such mysterious ways… all I know is I’m grateful we’re in each other’s lives. Love you! xoxo
Dearest Rachel. Thanks so much again for your invaluable help in getting The Wonder of Tech off the ground. I remember calling you asking for your advice in starting a website and the next thing I knew you had switched me to WordPress (thank you!) and hosted my site on your account (THANK YOU!!!). I could focus on writing about tech instead of struggling to figure out the backend of website administration in the beginning.
Our friendship is amazing and it was formed before Facebook or Skype. Yes, Vincent brought us together and we discovered we had so much in common, as do our families.
You’re right, I would wish for my children that they have a friendship as wonderful as ours, whether they forged it online or in real life. But I also am somewhat concerned that they will think that everyone on the Internet is as wonderful as you are!
Hi Carolyn,
Wow, that’s a fantastic post you have here. And after all this time, never did I hear Adrienne saying that she’d met you in person 🙂 I must have missed it!
Do you remember not long ago, you made a comment on one of my dishes on Facebook that said “I’ll be right over!” and I said, that you’d be welcome! Well, I really meant it.
I understand what you mean about what you’re teaching your children in the meantime, and we know how children learn 10 times more from what we do than what we tell them, don’ they? But I think that if you explain the them all the differences between this and meeting someone who you really don’t know but from some chat rooms or something like that, they can see the difference I’m sure. Those bloggers are really like true friends, so that’s different I think.
Thank you for sharing this great stories with us.
Hi Sylviane, Yes, I remember my comment at your place and I meant it too. If you lived nearby, I would have been out the door headed to your place.
You’re absolutely correct about children learning from what they see us do rather than what we tell them. I can preach to my girls about not meeting strangers online but I do a very poor job of convincing them of the dangers.
Yes, bloggers do feel like true friends but Adrienne and I were both fooled by the woman who had a fake identity online for her blog. But I do think that phone calls and video chats help to get to know people. Skype wasn’t around when Rachel and I met but I had done some Google Hangouts with Adrienne and talked to her on the phone so I was pretty sure of her true identity!
Hi Carolyn,
Sorry for stopping by late this time, just been caught up with flu and all that comes along with it, though I’d bookmarked this page and thought of coming over today sometime 🙂
I wish I could meet you and Adrienne, and I’m glad both of you had the chance to really meet up with each other, must have been so much of fun! I know you both are talked a lot in our family, so my kids would love to meet you both in person too, that’d be a different experience altogether, isn’t it?
Nice to know about your other online friend’s too, and yes, the kid’s might call me the worst mother too for the time I spend online…need to do something about that now.
Thanks for sharing, and wishing you a lovely year ahead 🙂
Hi Harleena, Yes, I truly hope that you and I could meet someday in real life too. What fun we would have! And I’d love for our daughters and fathers to meet too.
The online world is so small but the real world has many more miles to cover. Who knows, someday our wish may come true!
I hope you feel better soon, Harleena. A few members of my family have been hit by the flu since we’ve returned so I know how bad you must feel. I hope you have a restful weekend ahead!
Hi Carolyn,
I just read Adrienne Smith first post of the year on her blog and she made mention of the wonderful experience in meeting you in person.
One of the wonderful things about blogging is the ability to express oneself and creating engagement ( especially through blog commenting). My four month of foray into the blogging world has made me come across wonderful people from all over the world.
I must commend you for taking the initiative of seizing the opportunity to meet Adrienne; I look forward to the day when I will be able to meet in person the wonderful people that has really impacted in me positive reasons to be a blogger.
Thanks for sharing this, and I wish you a prosperous new year.
James
Hi James, You’re right, it’s not often that our online and real life worlds merge and when that happens the results can be mixed. But I was thrilled to meet Adrienne in person, my whole family loved her and we all had such a wonderful time together.
Yes, we do make great friends in the blogging world but our opportunities to connect with these friends in the real world can be rare. I hope you get a chance to meet some of your blogging friends in real life someday, James!
Hi Carolyn,
Its really good to be here,
I am here via the notification of Harleena Singh at her G+ page
Indeed these stories are amazing!
I never met any one so far, though I have a good number of online friends in my English blogging as well as in my Malayalam (my native language) blogging.
Its really amazing to meet friends that way, they there are few fake ones too in the www like the one you mentioned here for her you wrote a Guest post too, this that after revealing her identity you did not co-operated with here, so one should be bit aware and cautious about while moving forward with new friends.
keep it up
keep informed
Best
Philip :-h
Hi Philip, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Thanks for letting me know you were sent her from Harleena’s G+ post. She is a wonderful friend and supporter of The Wonder of Tech.
I’m glad you enjoyed my stories, though there are plenty of stories of meetings gone wrong. I have been very fortunate twice to meet amazing online friends in person.
You’re right, caution is key when you’re meeting online friends in real life. I hope you get a chance to meet an online friend in real life and that your experiences will be as fantastic as mine have been.
I don’t know if it is safe to really trust someone whom you just met over the web. It’s not bad to not trust people but i think it’s still good to be safe than sorry.
But your story is something different, it’s not something we encounter everyday.Good that you found friends online and that is something I’m trying to work on now.
Hi Jacob, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! You’re right, meeting an online friend in real life is risky and people should definitely proceed with caution. I definitely got lucky in meeting two amazing friends from the online world. But some stories are very different and don’t have happy endings. People need to consider carefully before they merge their online worlds with their real worlds.
Free, can Rachel be my BFF too?
I’ve had very good experiences meeting Adam Toporek, Gini Dietrich, Shonali Burke, Dino Dogan and Al Smith and would have welcomed any of them in my house. However, my wife is a different story; she is very particular about ‘her’ house much less bringing in someone I met online…:).
I would definitely like to meet you in person so maybe that will happen one of these days.
My life is pretty much an open book; I don’t even know how I would be able to ‘catfish’ someone.
Hi Bill, Yeah, you probably would have had a better chance of catfishing someone when you were the Invisible Blogger…
I’m sure Rachel would become your BFF, except that she can’t stay at your house for a week. So you don’t meet her stringent guidelines for real world friendship.
I imagine we will meet in person someday, Bill. I hope to get back to visit my (real world) friends in Florida at some point and will get in touch to see if I can set another wonderful example of what not to do for my girls! :-bd
Hi Carolyn,
I am just heading from Adrienne’s blog where she mentioned your meet up on 28th of December. Hope you both had a great time. I am pleased to know that even your blog to is going to celebrate its 3’rd anniversary like Harleena Singh’s Aha-Now blog which too completed it three years of existence. Good to know about Rachel’s visit too and how your family and their family are good friends now. Being a mother of three teenage girls and to encourage meeting online friends might look hollow but its ok if we meet genuinely good people over fraud people. Anyways the people whom you met are really nice, I know about Adrienne but not much about Rachel, but now I will know her too. So for now to introduce my self I am Vijesh not a regular follower of your blog but will follow from now on to know more about you…
BTW Happy New Year to you and your family.
Hi Vijesh, I’m very happy to welcome you to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, my blog is about one month younger than Harleena’s blog and she is another person I would love to meet in real life!
Yes, my real world has definitely been enriched by my online friends though I have been fortunate in making amazing connections online. I would still feel close to Adrienne and Rachel even if I hadn’t met them in person, but meeting them face-to-face certainly has deepened our connections.
I have had pretty good experiences meeting online friends in real life. Most of the time it has worked out well.
That’s great news, Josh! From the results of the survey and the comments, your experience seems to be more common than those who regretted meeting an online friend in the real world. That’s a very good thing.
Hi Carolyn,
Very interesting post. I have not met anyone in person. But, finally, I did talk to a fellow blogger on the phone . . . and it was great. It was fun to share different ideas. I am glad you had good experiences. Hopefully, I will attend a convention and actually meet one of you guys that I have started connecting with 🙂
Hi Barb, That would be a great way to meet online friends, at a blogging convention. I’ve been to blogging Meetups but not a convention. How much fun would that be! 🙂
Hi Carolyn
I think most bloggers wonder how our bloggers friends are in real life. Maybe we will be disappointed or maybe we will have nothing to talk about. Anyway if you should ever come to little Denmark I would love to meet you. You don’t seems like a serial killer to me, but maybe I am wrong 😉
Hi Thomas, No, I’m not a serial killer (though that’s probably what real serial killers say… ^#(^ ).
I did get to Denmark this past summer, though it was the Faroe Islands so a bit far from you. I hope I get back to Denmark on the continent someday!
That is great that you met Adrienne and Rachel in person., Carolyn. I have met a couple of people that are online and they are now good friends. When you have a similar topic or goal, it is amazing to connect and support each other. Happy New Year and have a wonderful 2014!
Hi Cathy, Great point. You’re right, when we have one thing in common, we often have several things in common. After I got to know Adrienne and Rachel I found out that we had much more in common than the original thing that brought us together.
It’s depends upon the person you wish to meet. If he/she is a good one.Then it’s a good experience. If he/she is not?
Hi Hari, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! You’re right, your experience in meeting others definitely depends on the person. The thing about the Internet is that you can’t really know who you are meeting when you form a relationship on the Internet. You’re taking a chance with meeting someone in person, but that chance can really pay off as it did with me meeting Adrienne and Rachel.