Phantom followers...

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for months, ever since Cheri Amor turned up followed by – well, I’ll come to that. Have any of you noticed how people and even characters that I have written about in my blog are turning up as followers? I thought it was quite amusing at first but now I’m not so sure.

The first time something odd happened was back in May when a new follower called Sheri Amor turned up and left a message for Misty. Now it always flattering to get a new follower, particularly when they are a stranger, but Sheri Amor is a 19 year old female from Binan Laguna in the Philippines. She is fond of Rhythm and Blues, not keen on movies, likes writing, cam whoring (which isn’t what it sounds like) has a blog called Amourous, is on myspace, and is a Capricorn.

I web-checked her and she appears to be real, I even found her myspace, blog and photographs… how very odd that she should follow me. Admittedly, she only followed me for a week and then disappeared from the followers list - she left her tracks though.

You can see her message to Misty here.

Even odder ‘misty’ (I assume Misty the cat) responded to Cheri’s message and left her a message. What was happening here? A Pilipino teenager and a cat corresponding on my blog… how interesting. Later a new Misty_the_cat turned up as a follower (the one that is still with us), I have a suspicion as to who that one may be (Holly), but that first ‘misty’ message – who was that?

I have a number of readers who dip in and out of my blog and never leave messages, I seem to have some people who regularly read but follow anonymously, leaving the occasional comment, and of course I have my regular followers who read and comment (I thank them for being interested), but imagine my surprise when a dead person turned up as a follower. You may remember that I wrote a post about getting in contact with Orson Welles by Ouija. I haven’t experimented with the Ouija since and one of the reasons is that after that particular post Orson Welles made an appearance, leaving comments and even posting a picture of himself in the follower’s gallery.

After that new phantom followers continued to turn up at regular intervals - the voice of the blog, Salvador Dali, Denzil Duck.

Now I had no intention of Dilly’s lost egg ever turning up as a lost duckling, but since this Denzil has become a follower I’m thinking about bringing him into the lives of my rubber duck family. How strange is that? It seems that an unknown follower calling himself Denzil Duck is beginning to direct my blog. Yes, the lunatics really have taken over the asylum, in fact they are even adding new wings to it, what next… a conservatory?

Generally I know the identities of the people following me. I know who SAR is, and David, but there are a few people who comment occasionally that I really have no idea about, they aren’t followers but they still comment. So just who is ADWORKS, and are these phantom followers all the same person or are they different people borrowing names from my blog? Which of you is Misty, who is TVOTB, do I know Orson, and who on earth is Denzil Duck? Are you all reading this at the moment?

It can’t really be Orson Welles and Salvador Dali can it?

I’m becoming a little paranoid about the whole thing. I’m convinced that Cheri Amor was a scam to make money, she’s probably a fifty year old man in the Phillipines, and if I’d had made e-space contact with her I’d have been bombarded with sob stories and requests for money. Her original profile was tailored around my interests gleaned from the subject matter of my blog. It told of a single parent sister and a sick auntie and uncle with whom Cheri was going to live with whilst studying at university. Yes I think that young Cheri Amor is definitely a scam… but what about the others?

Just to prove I'M not making Cheri up, take a look at Cheri’s friendster page here.

You know, I wasn’t even totally convinced about Sacha until I made contact with him away from the blog (sorry Sach). Of course, logic should have told me that nobody would have known about my old school friend, but then logic isn’t talking to me much about my phantom followers. That’s Sacha in the picture, handsome young fellow isn’t he? Sorry again Sach, but I couldn’t resist it - bet you didn’t know I had that picture did you?

Okay, so I have some phantom followers - ‘So what?’ I hear you ask.

Well, today perhaps the oddest thing of all happened. I posted a picture of Holly for her birthday and Misty_the_cat responded (which is not that unusual, is it Holly?), but then somebody called Trudi Satnav responded to the photograph as well. Now, only a handful of people at work, and my friends and family know that I call the sat-nav in my car Trudi. Is it one of them, all of them, are they my phantom followers?

Spooky. Right? Well, even spookier is the fact that I wrote a post about Trudi the night BEFORE she turned up on the blog. It isn’t even published yet, I’m going to post it some time this week, and NOBODY knew about that, not even Gaynor.

Coincidence?

I’m beginning to feel as though I’ve stepped into a Steven King novel where the writer (there’s often a writer in SK’s novels) is writing about characters which then start to appear in the real world…

No. It can’t be that…

Can it?