The Impulse to Sock Puppetry

In the midst of a revealing summary of the Siegel episode (and I’m inclined to agree with Steve; Siegel was on a mission to destroy, and Ezra was quite reserved in his reaction), Ezra writes:

I’ve been a blogger for three-and-a-half years now, and I well know the business end of an angry readership with instant feedback mechanisms. The temptation to create a new persona and rally support for yourself in comments can be almost overwhelming.

I found this strange, because I’ve never felt that temptation. I have an alternative persona and blog that I use as a homepage and to occasionally post observations that I don’t think meet the high standards of LGM (and, given that I only post over there once or twice a month, you can imagine how low that bar really is), but I’ve never felt the urge to bring Raoul Vega into a conversation over here, or use him to defend me on some other blog. Angry commenters are, well, angry commenters, but the best reactions have always seemed either to engage or ignore. Reaction to my mild Ken Pollack defense was almost universally negative (and from people I respect), but it didn’t even occur to me to have my alter-ego ride into the conversation on a white horse and try to save the day.

It seems to me that most incidences of sock puppetry come from writers who are moving to the blogosphere from another medium, and who are unused to a) the immediate feedback, b) the vitriol, and c) the freedom to be whatever or whoever you want to be. I also, like Gavin, think that sock puppetry is a relatively mild crime as blogospheric sins go. Siegel’s examples were particularly pompous and mean-spirited, but I still suspect that sock puppetry is the excuse more than the cause for his suspension, and that the real reason is that his blog proved to be an embarassment (and perhaps even legal liability) for TNR.