Good ol' hiding in plain sight
March/2006: Personal - I've been running Perverted-Justice.com for nearly three years now. It's a wonderful experience, we've had already, this year, nearly a hundred people arrested for soliciting a kid. And it's March. It's March and we've had nearly a hundred people arrested for soliciting kids online. It's early March. Amazing stuff, the conviction machine is gearing up hardcore, it should be a GREAT year.
Of course, no matter who you are online nor what you do, there are always goofballs that will have some stupidity to spout. As I've told reporters "Hey, even the Red Cross has haters." It's a very simple and true statement. No matter what you do, who you are online, someone is going to take issue with it. It's the nature of the beast. For years now, people have been attacking me for "being anonymous." It's a ridiculous attack for many reasons, most of which I'm going to share right here.
First, let's set the record straight: I have never been anonymous. Period. The name Xavier Von Erck is a name I've been using since I was fifteen. Even those who try to attack me as being "anonymous" have had to recognize this once my rental history was examined. It was found that I lived with a Dorothy and Ernest Erck at various points. It was also found that my mother's last name is also... yep, you guessed it, Erck. Dorothy and Ernest Erck were my wonderful grandparents who I loved dearly. They died a few years ago. My grandmother suffered from some severe alzheimers at the end of her life, but she had enough left to understand what I was trying to build. She died shortly before the website became "big" in August of 2003. My only regret regarding PeeJ is that they were not around to see what it has become. Thankfully, my mother is and she is very proud of the work everyone does in the organization.
The name I've been using for the last eleven years was not picked "at random." It was chosen because the family that I lived with and grew up around were all on my mother's side. All Erck's. One might wonder where the "Von" comes from, and I'll sidetrack momentarily to tell that story. When my great grandfather came over to the United States in the early teens of the nineteen hundreds, he came over as a Von Erck. When World War 1 broke out, he was smart enough to recognize the bad idea of having an ethnic German name. So he claimed that his family emigrated from Russia during WW1. Von Erck became "Erck." They spared themselves the discrimination.
After WW1 and the Versailles treaty, they went back to the Von. The Bolshevik revolution made being Russian, well, not so glastnost, da? But then that pesky little thing called World War 2 broke out, so the Von Erck's again, guess what, became the Erck's. This time, they would again claim to have emigrated from Russia. Of course, after WW2... what happened? Cold war. The family kept the Erck name but decided to stop shifting nationalities. I decided to bring the Von part back after all these years when I was a teen. They came off the boats with it and only flip-flopped it to escape discrimination.
So when I've told the press that Von Erck is my legitimate name, I was being absolutely truthful. Nobody on this planet that is familar with me offline knows me as anything but Xavier Von Erck. That's been my name long before we created Perverted-Justice.com. Only recently have I been attacked as being some "shady anonymous" figure. It's a joke. I've used the fucking name of my family the entire time! Furthermore, the people who have decried my supposed anonymity? Those idiots knew all this, it came up in the research. It's simply a matter of the truth not being as compelling as the made-up fiction.
It has been a goal of mine to change my name legally since I decided to take that name on. I just never got around to it. Hard to change your name as a teen and when I was working regular ol' warehouse and freight jobs, changing it would be a pain in the ass as well... bank accounts, paychecks, tons of documentation to have changed legally. Even now, there are a ton of paperwork that has to be changed. It's annoying, but that's the government for you... nothing is simple.
I've always had more than a moral right to the name I chose as a teen, after all, my father was a garbage alcoholic who I never lived with and I have no affinity for his family. The man was out of the picture before I could speak. It is not as though I made up some random name, I simply took the name of my mother's family, the family that I was raised by. That's not "anonymity" nor could ever be construed to be. When I went on Portland TV for the first time, my mother received phone calls about it. 'Tis my name and I was "hiding in plain sight."
Of course, explaining such things to the minority of the print media that is filled with idiotic morons happens to be an impossible task. "Is that your name?" - "Yes." - "Is that your legal name?" - "It's what my mother calls me." - "Hmmph." That sort of stupidity has led me to say fuck the paperwork and just finally finish the process of changing my name. Now, I shall need to explain no more, forever (Credit to Chief Joseph).
Because really, we can all drop the "Xavier is anonymous" lie now
...fucking terrible drivers license picture, ugh
I've never had anything to fear from running this organization. Had I had something to fear, I would have taken some random, bullshit name made up out of whole cloth. I wouldn't have taken the fucking name of the family I was raised by. If I had wanted to have been anonymous online, I could have been. I could have called myself Juan Carlos Flatas El Poucho (Now that's style!) for all anyone would have known. Instead, I chose the name everyone knew me by. Such a terrible EVIL anonymous vigilante am I!
Otherwise, all is going well in my life. PeeJ is running wonderfully, we've been able to do some awesome things so far this year and the year is young! My girlfriend is wonderful and life goes well. That's obvious, because it seems like I blog 100% less when I'm blissfully happy. Well, and due to the fact that I don't have too much free time online to randomly blog about things. Hopefully that will change soon so I can blog far more often. That'd be nice :)
Of course, no matter who you are online nor what you do, there are always goofballs that will have some stupidity to spout. As I've told reporters "Hey, even the Red Cross has haters." It's a very simple and true statement. No matter what you do, who you are online, someone is going to take issue with it. It's the nature of the beast. For years now, people have been attacking me for "being anonymous." It's a ridiculous attack for many reasons, most of which I'm going to share right here.
First, let's set the record straight: I have never been anonymous. Period. The name Xavier Von Erck is a name I've been using since I was fifteen. Even those who try to attack me as being "anonymous" have had to recognize this once my rental history was examined. It was found that I lived with a Dorothy and Ernest Erck at various points. It was also found that my mother's last name is also... yep, you guessed it, Erck. Dorothy and Ernest Erck were my wonderful grandparents who I loved dearly. They died a few years ago. My grandmother suffered from some severe alzheimers at the end of her life, but she had enough left to understand what I was trying to build. She died shortly before the website became "big" in August of 2003. My only regret regarding PeeJ is that they were not around to see what it has become. Thankfully, my mother is and she is very proud of the work everyone does in the organization.
The name I've been using for the last eleven years was not picked "at random." It was chosen because the family that I lived with and grew up around were all on my mother's side. All Erck's. One might wonder where the "Von" comes from, and I'll sidetrack momentarily to tell that story. When my great grandfather came over to the United States in the early teens of the nineteen hundreds, he came over as a Von Erck. When World War 1 broke out, he was smart enough to recognize the bad idea of having an ethnic German name. So he claimed that his family emigrated from Russia during WW1. Von Erck became "Erck." They spared themselves the discrimination.
After WW1 and the Versailles treaty, they went back to the Von. The Bolshevik revolution made being Russian, well, not so glastnost, da? But then that pesky little thing called World War 2 broke out, so the Von Erck's again, guess what, became the Erck's. This time, they would again claim to have emigrated from Russia. Of course, after WW2... what happened? Cold war. The family kept the Erck name but decided to stop shifting nationalities. I decided to bring the Von part back after all these years when I was a teen. They came off the boats with it and only flip-flopped it to escape discrimination.
So when I've told the press that Von Erck is my legitimate name, I was being absolutely truthful. Nobody on this planet that is familar with me offline knows me as anything but Xavier Von Erck. That's been my name long before we created Perverted-Justice.com. Only recently have I been attacked as being some "shady anonymous" figure. It's a joke. I've used the fucking name of my family the entire time! Furthermore, the people who have decried my supposed anonymity? Those idiots knew all this, it came up in the research. It's simply a matter of the truth not being as compelling as the made-up fiction.
It has been a goal of mine to change my name legally since I decided to take that name on. I just never got around to it. Hard to change your name as a teen and when I was working regular ol' warehouse and freight jobs, changing it would be a pain in the ass as well... bank accounts, paychecks, tons of documentation to have changed legally. Even now, there are a ton of paperwork that has to be changed. It's annoying, but that's the government for you... nothing is simple.
I've always had more than a moral right to the name I chose as a teen, after all, my father was a garbage alcoholic who I never lived with and I have no affinity for his family. The man was out of the picture before I could speak. It is not as though I made up some random name, I simply took the name of my mother's family, the family that I was raised by. That's not "anonymity" nor could ever be construed to be. When I went on Portland TV for the first time, my mother received phone calls about it. 'Tis my name and I was "hiding in plain sight."
Of course, explaining such things to the minority of the print media that is filled with idiotic morons happens to be an impossible task. "Is that your name?" - "Yes." - "Is that your legal name?" - "It's what my mother calls me." - "Hmmph." That sort of stupidity has led me to say fuck the paperwork and just finally finish the process of changing my name. Now, I shall need to explain no more, forever (Credit to Chief Joseph).
Because really, we can all drop the "Xavier is anonymous" lie now
...fucking terrible drivers license picture, ugh
I've never had anything to fear from running this organization. Had I had something to fear, I would have taken some random, bullshit name made up out of whole cloth. I wouldn't have taken the fucking name of the family I was raised by. If I had wanted to have been anonymous online, I could have been. I could have called myself Juan Carlos Flatas El Poucho (Now that's style!) for all anyone would have known. Instead, I chose the name everyone knew me by. Such a terrible EVIL anonymous vigilante am I!
Otherwise, all is going well in my life. PeeJ is running wonderfully, we've been able to do some awesome things so far this year and the year is young! My girlfriend is wonderful and life goes well. That's obvious, because it seems like I blog 100% less when I'm blissfully happy. Well, and due to the fact that I don't have too much free time online to randomly blog about things. Hopefully that will change soon so I can blog far more often. That'd be nice :)
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