This is cool. There is an app called Whisper which was invented originally to be sort of a chat room that used random images based on whatever you were posting. The posts could be about 100 characters or less and they attached a random photo taken from a gallery of art.
I’ve been posting one or two pictures a day using my own gallery as the background instead of the random photos. Among my postings are mostly disguised photos of me inferring drug use or featuring drug use. It starts conversations. Mostly those conversations are bots or foreign workers trying to scam money out of me in some way either by selling me fake drugs using bitcoin, or offering to be an escort, or for some unusual reason and inordinate number of replies come from bots claiming they want to be my sugar daddy offering anywhere from $500 a week to $4,000 a month. It varies but the scripts are always pretty much the same. I haven’t quite figured out why that one is so popular and whisper. It is so overwhelming that I can’t imagine anyone falling for it.
My best guess is that they’re gathering people’s responses and that people know it’s a bot or a scam but they still are bored so they reply and carry on. In this way those bots can identify chat patterns and improve their AI to be better bots in the future.
In any case one in 10 replies come from real people who are often local and share my interest in drug use. Yesterday one such reply apparently saw me in town and recognized me from my bright orange shirt and hat that matched a photo online. It was my first celebrity spotting from the celebrities point of view.
I’m not really claiming to be a celebrity in this small City but it was kind of neat to be identified even if it happened from a random stranger who I will never know. Whisper is designed to be totally anonymous although that goes out the window once you start posting pictures of yourself.
It was a neat feeling. One that I kind of have always hoped might happen. Anonymous fandom is far better than up close and personal fandom. I didn’t have to sign any autographs or Wade through a rush of screaming fans. Just one person who acknowledged seeing me was enough to brighten my day. And because I’m wearing orange it’s already pretty bright.
