Chasing Wattpad

Does your mother know you're up this late?

This is another thing I noticed right away when I first started interacting on Wattpad.

Kids. Everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Don't get me wrong I like kids. I was even a kid once myself (true story), and, according to about a dozen DNA tests, I even participated in making a kid myself. What I didn't expect, though, was going on to a writer site and finding so many kids running around writing stories. My first impression when I logged on was that I was in the wrong place. I thought maybe I logged on to sesame street dot com or something like that. Then I noticed these kids were all writing love stories or "fan fictions" (a term I heard here first) and stuff like that. Then I was sure I was in the wrong place.

That in itself, though, is not a problem. It's great that kids want to write and share or are interested in being writers. Let them write I say. Sure, I wish that they would write about something else other than Justin Beiber or Twilight and crap like that but hey, it's writing. I am not going to read any of that stuff no matter how many millions of reads or votes it gets on here. That's just me.

Any interest in writing or reading is a good thing, right? Well, yes and no. I am a million years old. I can read whatever I want. My kids can't. I have a say what they can and can't read. There is way too much ugly, stupid, and nasty crap out there for any parent to not get involved in what their kids can read. You can't let them read just anything.

My point in this is that I don't see how kids are protected from stuff here. Or, even worse, how they are protected from older people. Maybe I'm a little cynical being a cop for so long. But there are bad people everywhere trying to take advantage of young people and I am sure this site is as susceptible to them as anything else.

A couple of months ago I commented on a poem (a love poem). It was pretty good so I made a comment. The writer and I exchanged comments and then after a bit the writer private messaged me about my works. After a few minutes I got the sense that the writer was not very sophisticated. There were some questions about my works that made me realize that I was not talking to an experienced person. I asked how old they were. I was talking to a 15 year old girl. At 3 in the morning! WHAT. THE. HELL! Nothing on her page indicated to me that the writer was a girl or 15. They used generic information and did not put a real picture of themselves.

This worries me a bit. Both as a father and as a former police investigator. I have worked cases like this where people have gone to jail for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person online because they did not know who they were really talking to. It happens every day.

You have to be careful. You could be talking to someone who says they are and adult and they are not. You will never really know will you? This is the internet after all. It's designed to let you be whoever you want to be.

Now this isn't just a Wattpad problem. This is a problem for any type of social media site like Facebook and others. And this is one. Don't let anyone tell you it isn't. People get on here to share but also to talk to each other and socialize. I already have heard so many stories of stalkers and trolls. Of people making threats. It happens everywhere.

So if you plan to stay on take care who you are talking to. It could be a child and you may not even know it. Or worse (for you), it could be an undercover sex crimes detective pretending to be child. Wrap your head around that idea for a while.

Having said all that I would like to point out that there are some young people with some outstanding writing talent. And I think that is an awesome thing. But to them I ask, "Does your mother know you're up this late?".

Thanks for reading. My next topic will be about a writing pet peeve of mine "Is that really a poem? I don't thing that's really a poem". Lol. I will try not to piss anyone off.