HERE’S THE BOTTOM LINE: I didn’t fucking make the Digsty account. I don’t know who did. If I did it in my sleep or something (??), I sure as fuck didn’t know how to get into it, and I sure as shit didn’t know that somebody VERIFIED it. What the Hell?
You know me: i like the idea of being Verified. That’s great. It’s a fun little game, and I have lots of fun wif it.
The links are to my Twitter and YouTube. I’ve censored the shit that didn’t make any fucking sense. It was bad information— worse, bad VERIFIED information.
I also didn’t think that changing the erroneous information would de-verify me, so you’ve got to settle for this reconstruction of what it should have looked like, had it had good information in it:
Above is a reconstruction of what it looked like after I found the account and started correcting bad information. It was a Verified account, with somebody else’s real(?) name, my Twitter icon, my Twitter header. And links, pointing to my social media. (Twitter and YouTube, at least.) When I logged in, it had a bunch more links that didn’t make any fucking sense.
This fucking terrified me. Was somebody impersonating me? There’s not a lot to impersonate, but… this was something else. A fucking Verified impersonator?
Anyway, I got in there and changed everything right fucking quick. After I deleted one particular link, right after getting rid of all the wrong information, the checkmark disappeared.
I’m going to repeat that, because it bears repeating.
After I deleted the information in the profile that was just flat-out wrong,
the profile
LOST ITS CHECKMARK.
IT WAS ONLY VERIFIED WHEN THERE WAS BAD INFORMATION IN IT. WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS?
The fucking Verified account, that I didn’t make, that I had never logged into until today (to the best of my knowledge), HAD WRONG INFORMATION ON IT. That’s like the opposite of what Verification is supposed to be.
Oh, and about the reconstruction thing: I didn’t think that putting the right information into it would de-verify me. Because, I figured: hey. That wouldn’t make sense, right? So why take a picture? The checkmark will still be there when I correct the shit that’s fucking wrong. Right?
Because losing the checkmark, for correcting bad information, wouldn’t make any sense, would it?
Because that wouldn’t fucking make any goddamned sense, now, would it?
FUCK
The Problem
Digsty seems to be a website where they just scrape several social media et al profiles, and they generate random profile pages for people. On Digsty. You can see Chris Kluwe, whose profile is named after what they think is his Facebook account; so it has a REALLY cumbersome username; you can see Kevin Smith, of Jay & Silent Bob fame; and you can see… oh yeah, Donald Trump. I don’t think he made a profile on this website, guys.
It feels like this is a place where they tried to be some sort of bizarre social media profile links ‘hub’. But, they didn’t ask. If I ever made a Digsty account (nothing shows up when I put my e-mail into the Forgot Password? dialog), I sure as fuck didn’t know how to get into it. It took logging into it with the Twitter account it linked to, to let me delete / edit all the shit that made no fucking sense. Did I once log into this with a social media account? I don’t fucking think so. I certainly don’t remember being Verified.
For a half second, there, there was the unimaginable thrill of being Verified. And it was a surprise. It was a surprise. All for me.
But… there was also terror. Like— this isn’t me. It looks like me, but some shit’s wrong. Like, who the fuck is this? Is this somebody fucking with me? Who would do this? Why’d they register an account under my username? HOW THE SHIT DID AN IMPOSTOR GET VERIFIED? How’d they register the account?! Did they register an account? It feels auto-generated. When I logged into it, it sucked all my latest pictures, up into it. It had to have been made recently: I’ve only been using that PicRew avatar for a few months, to a year. I also recently changed my profile picture, within a month. So, maybe it was made a few months ago? A couple? I dunno.
I remember finding a Digsty profile for myself. Like, a year ago? Something. No checkmark, back then. It had nothing on it, really, and I couldn’t figure out how to log into it. I thought it was just a weird-ass ‘ghost’ website, like when somebody mirrored 4chan, removed all the images, changed the name to “Sheezy Hub”, or whatever it was. Somebody decided to scrape information online, put it into a different format, and they called it a website. None of my business; I figured it was just somebody’s pet project, and I laughed, thinking it was kinda neat. Seemed harmless.
But here’s the thing: WHEN WRONG INFORMATION SEEPS INTO THIS PLACE, AND YOU PUT A FUCKING CHECKMARK ON IT, AND I HAD NO SAY-SO IN THE MATTER, you’re really fucking confusing people.
It’s not the end of the World. But, What if this Verified profile linked to the wrong social media profiles? You didn’t even ask me! What the shit is this?
Now here’s the funniest part. Every time I got onto a website like this, and I asked to be Verified, they pretty much flatly refused, and laughed at me.
The one time I don’t even fucking ask, I get Verified.
On an account I didn’t even make.
FOR A SECOND
The Bottom Line
I don’t think it’s terribly important to guard my ‘brand’ online. I don’t fucking care about that shit. I grew up on a spaceship; I don’t give a shit about any of that crap. Still, it irks me when somebody else uses my screen name. Like— don’t. I know, just by saying that, that I’m going to have a ton of fuckheads doing just that. But hey: this is pretty much the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario, being, somebody fucking makes an account with my username, pretends to be me, and then GETS VERIFIED. Fucking HELL, dude.
I don’t even know if that didn’t happen. I had no way to figure out who made this: ALL the profile information got erased and replaced with my Twitter account’s data, when I logged in. I’m not even sure logging into it was a good idea! Probably, it was a terrible one! Uh oh!
The thing that irritates the piss out of me, about this, is— I didn’t ask for this. This is just about as bad as when Network Solutiosn, after asking me, and having me say NO, fucking registered a domain name of my screen name, and then handed me control of it, and asked me if I wanted to renew it. That’s what happened, by the way— that’s why I have ‘icze4r.online’. It’s an ugly, piece-of-shit domain name, but if I don’t keep renewing it, I can’t control what goes on it. It’s like giving me a free car and then I have to pay the taxes on it, after I told you: I don’t want a free car. Or giving me a puppy. I didn’t want a puppy!
That’s what pisses me off. It’s one thing that I didn’t ask for it; you’d think a checkmark would be great. But it’s not great when the information on the becheckmarked profile is wrong. Don’t do that. It’s not terribly important; I’m talking about this like this partially for comedic effect— but, don’t do that!
People ask for this shit. Similarly to at least two other link-hubs that I asked to be Verified on, people ask to be Verified on Digsty. It’s probably just as meaningless as it is on every other link hub. Did you know that my Vid.me checkmark appears on iczer.one if you wait, like, 6 or 7 minutes? Something like that. I forget what I set it to.
It means as much as Digsty. Actually, it means more, since I actually had it once, and, I FUCKING PUT THAT INFORMATION THERE, MYSELF.
Bottom line: No, I don’t give a shit what Digsty says. And, I don’t think I have much control over it. If I permanently ‘deactivate’ or ‘delete’ the page, I wouldn’t be surprised if it shows up again. I’ve set the shitty page to not show up in Google Search Results or their directory. Enough. You freaked me out once; I can’t trust you. And, probably, they’re just going to fucking Verify me again, once I start ignoring the profile again. So don’t pay any attention to it.
Final Thoughts
This is the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen. Probably not, but you get the point. I had no input on this thing. I had never logged into this thing before today, to the best of my knowledge. (I put this here as a disclaimer: maybe I forgot? But I don’t think I did.) I think I’d fucking remember getting Verified.
So here’s my question: why the fuck did that thing get Verified? Is it because Verification is inherently meaningless, and some robot, or person, or somebody just decided, ‘oh yeah; verify the icze4r account, don’t check fucking any of the information’? What the hell happened?
This is the exact opposite of everything Verification should be! Verification should just be, ‘oh yeah; here’s the good information.’
But this wasn’t good information!
This was bad information!
I know for a fact that I’m going to continue having trouble with this, in the future. I knows it. Because, wrangling my Google Knowledge Panel, and looking at Brad Pitt’s, I realized— oh yeah. There’s bad information, there. A fan account is listed as the official Twitter account of Brad Pitt. I’ve told Google about it like 4 fucking times. Nobody does shit. Bad information’s just out there.
And nobody ever changes it.
Sometimes, Google’s Knowledge Panel insists that you’re dead. This is apparently a real problem. I can see how it is.
I bet that’s the next dumb shit that’s going to happen to me.
FUCK