Wandering Scribe: sitting duck

You may recall that I've linked to Wandering Scribe a couple of times recently (thanks in the main to Swiss Toni). It's the blog of a law graduate left by circumstances to live in her car somewhere in London.

Well, following on from an interview for the New York Times, she has now been the subject of a piece on the BBC site.

As might be imagined, the feature has directed an enormous amount of traffic her way, and many of those who have visited as a result of it have left comments. Many are empathetic messages of support from people who have at one time or another found themselves in a similar predicament - but there are also several commenters who have accused her of being a fraud and her blog of being a symptom of a lazy self-obsessed culture, the implication being that her time could be better spent in other ways.

Now, the thought that it might be a media hoax never even crossed my mind and, given my usual cynicism, that's something to be noted. But these commenters are just spiteful and aggressive.

Almost equally unsettling, though, are the many visitors to the site who have felt the need to admonish Wandering Scribe for her behaviour and / or lecture her about how she should feel and what action she should take. Those who have been with her from before the media storm blew up (and yes, I count myself in that number) know that the last thing she would want is to be lectured or pressurised. Or judged.

The BBC feature and the New York Times feature before it have both had the welcome effect of bringing visitors flooding to the site, thereby giving people an insight into a form of homelessness that doesn't make it into the statistics and which is therefore practically invisible. However, it's also made Wandering Scribe a target, whether for abuse or for heavy-handed advice and moralising. I just hope it doesn't result in her abandoning the site, but at the moment I fear that's exactly what will happen.