So I read a great piece of flash fiction...

Recently I’ve been mulling over implementing a new policy with my social media practices. I’m thinking about calling a moratorium on likes and check-ins, pins and stumbles.

On the one hand — and this is certainly how the marketers eying all those tasty bits of data would like you to think of it — you are engaging in social expression, you are singing to the world with your own individual song made up of pop culture references and color preferences. You are bonding with that cousin in Colorado, that sister-in-law of a friend, or even your bff. You are finding the gems of the Internet and sharing them. For me as a writer, I’m (or at least I hope I am) continuing to build and deepen my fan base, so they’ll buy my books.

But the other hand is more sinister. You’re providing marketers with your data, telling them how to most effectively sell to you, letting them know what images, what songs, what memes have resonance for you. Talk about the ultimate consumer survey – this one’s as long and exhaustive as you care to make it. Everyone who uses Gmail (and I’m one of them) has more than once been spooked at how the ad in the sidebar seems to target exactly what you’re thinking of with a precision worthy of a Twilight Zone episode. Imagine if every ad getting served to you is precisely tailored to convince you that you need that particular thneed.

This worries me. We are imperfect creatures, our brains are easily tricked, and subliminal tricks can be played upon us. Oxytocin makes us more trusting, advertising surrounds us on an unquestioned daily basis, and we are, after all, predictable and manipulable creatures.

Or what would a game tweaked to our individual quirks be like? (I envision something for myself filled with Amazons, talking animals, an assortment of literary figures ranging from Geoffrey Chaucer to James Tiptree Jr., and pop culture references to children’s cartoons from the late sixties to early 70s.) Such a game, perhaps one formulated with by then automated algorithms of gripping narrative construction, would be awesome.

And on that sinister hand again, it would be so addictive. I say that as someone who gave at least three night a week to D&D all through my high school years, as a WoW player since the beta, as someone who laid a decade and a half of work on the altar of the entity known as Armageddon MUD, which has eaten lives, grades, careers, friendships, and even marriages over the course of its existence. The thought of a game more addictive than that terrifies me.

So while I’m not quite so worried about my data getting used nowadays, I do have concerns about the future and how my data footprint may someday be used. So what are strategies for dealing with this concern? None seem perfect, but three spring to mind.

1. I can stop using these networks. I’m reluctant to do that, because I enjoy the experience. I like looking at Pinterest pins and seeing all the pretty colors. I like being able to see what my friends are up and who’s got new stuff out that I can help promote.
2. I can introduce bad data into the mix. I can introduce some contradictory things in there, like saying I like licorice or Mitt Romney. Tracking that seems odd, but I’m capable of it, much like the friend who periodically buys items he doesn’t need with his shopping Advantage card, just to screw with the machine minds.
3. I can use networks with a persona. I can figure out my alternate Cat Rambo. We all do this to some extent already – no one showcases all of their bad selves online except for the truly narcissistic and deluded.

So what to do? I guess the first step is realizing there’s a problem. What do you think, am I just being paranoid and should break out my tinfoil hat or begin preserving my precious bodily fluids from contamination? Or is this something we should all be thinking about?

(And if I die under mysterious circumstances in the next couple weeks, it only confirms the corporate assassins exist…)

Enjoy this musing on social media for writers and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.

I recently posted in a Reddit thread about superhero novels and thought that the list I put together there might form an interesting blog post.

Superhero novels are near and dear to my heart for several reasons.

• One, I grew up reading comic books and loved some of them dearly. The only fanfic I have ever written involved the uncanny X-Men and the super villain Arcade, along with a thinly veiled version of myself. It has, luckily, been lost and not recorded for posterity.
• Two, I loved playing superhero RPG’s like Villains and Vigilantes and Champions. Superhero 2044 came out around the same time, but it wasn’t as interesting to my gaming group, which tended to stick with Champions.
• This led in fact to three, which is that I once wrote a novel involving superheroes. I wrote it while in the Masters program in writing at Johns Hopkins. At the time, watchmen had just come out, and the possibilities of superhero literature had not, perhaps we shall say, been realized as effectively as it is today. In fact, I took the book to Tom Disch, who was teaching in the office next to me, and who read a chapter, fixed me with a gimlet eye, and asked, “but why bother?” Several publishing houses looked at the novel and felt it was well written but not commercial. Some time later, tragically, the manuscript was lost in the course of moves. Its heroes can be found in a short story which appeared in Strange Horizons, Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut, which can also be found in story collection Near + Far. Other superhero stories by me appear in Corrupts Absolutely and Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight

So here’s some of my favorites:

From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain by Minister Faust is awesome superhero fiction. It’s told by the therapist of a superhero team that closely resembles the Avengers. Faust also has The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad.

Count Geiger’s Blues by Michael Bishop is amazing. Along the same lines is Bishop’s Brittle Innings, the story of a baseball playing monster.

The Wild Cards series edited by George R.R. Martin (of GoT fame) is tons and tons of fun and there are a LOT of them for those of us who like to read at a fast and furious clip.

In Hero Years I’m Dead by Michael Stackpole is terrific along with Once a Hero. I wish Stackpole would write more in this world.

Carrie Vaughn After the Golden Age is told from the point of view of the unpowered daughter of a pair of superheroes, Captain Olympus and Spark.

Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty.

Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible is told from alternating experienced villain and novice hero viewpoints.

Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a classic.

The Sugar Frosted Nutsack by Mark Leyner is, like all of Leyner’s books, hysterical, but this time with superheroes.

Those Who Walk in Darkness by John Ridley is the beginning of a series that I found reminiscent of joint online project Shadow Unit, created by Elizabeth Bear, Holly Black, Leah Bobet, Emma Bull, Sarah Monette, and Will Shetterly.

Nobody Gets the Girl by James Maxey. Series.

Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks is YA superhero fantasy.

Karma Girl by Jennifer Estep is frothy and funny and sweeps you along in a nicely satisfying story. First of a series.

Along the same lines is Black and White, the story of a superhero and a supervillain friendship by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. First in a series.

Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey (also known for her Kushiel adult epic fantasy series) is the story of a group genetically engineered for superpowers. First of a series.

If you want something that goes back to some of F&SF’s roots, try Doc Savage or A Feast Unknown by Philip Jose Farmer.