on @deuxmoi & anonymity
Oooh it’s been a minute since I’ve gotten to do a good ol’ fashioned “READ THIS NOW” Deez but I am completely obsessed with Maureen O’Connor’s The Joy and Agony of Being @deuxmoi, Instagram’s Accidental Gossip Queen for Vanity Fair.
If you’re unfamiliar with @deauxmoi, this piece easily walks you through the trajectory of everyone’s favorite mysterious celeb goss account (yes, Gossip Girl comparisons abound). What I find most fascinating is how the piece toys with the idea of anonymity: how it’s part of what shields the account owner from getting sued into the ground, but how the resulting mystery around this woman’s identity drives followers and celebs crazy trying to figure out who it is. (And you thought your passion project was stressful!??)
In the end, O’Connor tasks a particularly in-the-know friend with the job of figuring out who @deauxmoi is, and they come up with a “prime suspect.” But — spoiler alert — O’Connor doesn’t end up naming her, writing, “Attaching this anecdote to her name for all the infinities of Google eternity is a responsibility that I don’t want.” So as far as jaw-dropping investigative unmaskings go, it’s a total dud.
Is it narratively disappointing? Oh yes. But will it make you reconsider your own opinions of newsworthiness, celebrity, and whose identities on the internet we’re privy to and why? Absolutely. (For a way less theoretical and much darker addendum to all this, see: what happened with the Shitty Media Man list and its creator, Moira Donegan).
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