Wednesday, June 13, 2012

I am me.

My name is Gennifer Bursett. I am a designer (since April 2011) and minority co-owner (since April 2012) at Design House Digital, and I am DigiSmacker.

After receiving an anonymous email earlier today, threatening to expose me if I did not shut down this blog immediately, I am coming forward.

I am choosing to post this for a few reasons. 
  1. I am not at all a person who backs down from anonymous threats. 
  2. Anyone who has “documented proof” (as they say they do) can share it whether I comply with their demands or not. Today, tomorrow, next year... 
  3. Since the email was written from a “we” perspective, I can only assume that more than one person knows. The more that know, the more chances that it will be shared down the road.
Obviously, I would have preferred to stay anonymous. They said, “We strongly feel that this information will have a damaging effect on your reputation as a designer and store owner. We have a great deal of sympathy for the designers who sell in your store, whose reputation may be tarnished by their unfortunate and unknowing connection to the owner of such a damaging blog.”

They may be right.

I think the bulk of you are like me. I think that the bulk of people reading and commenting here are talented people, who have a vested interest in the inner workings of our industry. And as much as the people who composed the threatening email to me say the comments are hateful and hurtful, I believe that (for the most part) this is a constructive place where we can anonymously share insider information about the industry.

So, here I am. I have never deleted comments, as much as I wanted to (Ahem, Aly!), I’ve never promoted my own store, or my own name, and the multiple disappearing posts today went directly into the spam folder.

I will say this: I was DigiSmacker before I was a store owner. I did it on my own, and it had nothing to do with anyone else. I have been fair in what I’ve posted here, and I have no regrets. I’m not sure at this point if I will keep this blog going. Unfortunately, it may have an effect on people I know, so it’s not a decision I will make lightly, and (in the end) it will not be because someone decided to blackmail me.

So, anonymousdigismacker@hushmail.com... you can shove it up your ass.