I think I type “oh, no!” a lot without really meaning it, but this time I do mean it: OH NO!
Recently, Patricia Arquette deleted her Facebook account. She explained in a final Wall Post:
The [social] experiment was… Could a celebrity actually friend strangers and get to know them as a person? Just a regular person. Could you really become friends? Could you move past all that they had in their mind about you and actually show them the real you?
Oh, no. Although we don’t know why Arquette deactivated her account, odds are good that she encountered either a stalker or a major creepazoid. (The NY Daily News reports only that a lengthy Facebook communication had gone wrong, and Arquette’s own security team became involved.)
I feel terrible for the woman. For one, she’s my favorite Arquette—although that’s admittedly a slim line, because I love all the Arquette siblings. And I feel so sorry that she experienced this. But anyone with a sizable online/media presence—from celebrities to Z-list bloggers to tween-aged girls—is susceptible to violent, ill-intentioned weirdos. Hence all those Dateline episodes.
In the end, it seems as if Arquette thought of the Internet as the WELL (sorry, obscure) when the truth is, any ol’ sociopath can have a Facebook account. I mean, duh: didn’t Patricia watch The Social Network? That movie was all about sociopaths.