PCA Breaking News: Carol Zara vs. Facebook

Internet Geek Godess Carol Zara of www.digitallyblonde.com

Since 2009 Carol Zara has carved out her own little niche in the pop culture community.  As the nerd goddess of Twitter, the Brazilian born Toronto based beauty has become the poster girl of the geek subculture. Via a number of different channels, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and her own web-site www.digitallyblonde.com, Carol Zara has managed to a create phenomena around herself attracting the adoration of thousands of fan boys throughout the world.  Wearing thigh high stripped socks and horn rimmed glasses, Carol has found a kinship with the fan boys through a mutual love for video games, Ninja Turtles and other franchises from her childhood.  Last year Carol Zara was listed #3 in G4’s “Women of the Web” Countdown and was nominated for Wired Magazines’ Sexiest Geeks and won last years’ Shorty Award for Best Geek Girl.  Through her charismatic personality, honest sense of fun and, of course, stunning good looks, Carol Zara has suddenly been everywhere in a very short period of time. 

However, last week the seemingly  impossible happened to this maven of internet networking when the mighty Facebook stuck Carol down without warning or explanation.  Despite having a fan page with over four thousand people, Carol found herself suddenly banned from Facebook without any option to appeal or personal explanation.  

Now, with an army of angry fan boys starting the Free Carol Campaign, Carol Zara is one pissed off geek girl.  Still looking for an explanation beyond the form letter sent to her by Facebook, Carol is looking for justice and an explanation.  Was it the sexy pictures that she took with an octopus on a World Cup bet, or did Facebook single her out for communicating with her fans?  Whatever the case, Carol Zara wants an explanation. 

Carol spoke to me about the situation Friday August 13^th via telephone from her home in Toronto. 

Sam Tweedle:  Now I have been aware of your presence on the internet for a while Carol, but for the sake of my readers who may not be familiar with www.digitallyblonde.com, why don’t you give us an introduction to who you are and what you do. 

Via her love for video games and 80's cartoons Carol Zara has found a kindship with the geek community

Carol Zara:  Well it wasn’t anything that I planned.  I had an office job and I really hated it and there was all this stupid office politics involved.
I really loved politics but all I wanted was to help save the world.  But what I had to go through and not be honest and not say how things really are, I felt really unhappy. I really loved politics but all I wanted was to help save the world.  Well my friends kept saying “You should look at Twitter” and I said “Twitter is stupid.  I don’t know what it is but it sounds stupid” but I’m a very curious person and I decided to check out.  At first I thought [Twitter] was [too] public.  I didn’t even post my picture.  [I used] a picture of a strawberry.  I don’t even think [I used] my full name.  I just thought it was too public.  

Sam:  So you didn’t want to originally be in the public sphere. 

Carol:  No.  I can be a bit of an attention whore with my family.  I always wanted my mother’s attention or my brother’s attention but I never really thought I would get public attention from all over the world.  I never thought I’d sign autographs or posters.  I get requests from Saudi Arabia and soldiers in Iraq asking for posters.  When did I ever think that this was what I was going to do?  I also wasn’t a popular girl in school.  I was a chubby girl and no one liked me.  How would I ever picture that I would become popular without being on TV everyday?     

Sam:  What do you feel your popularity is based on? 

Carol:  Well when I started on Twitter I used the picture of the strawberry and I started saying things and people really enjoyed it.  They thought it was funny.  They thought that I was being truthful.  They agreed with me.  So I decided to post my own picture and when I did people said “That can’t be you.  That’s a fake picture.  It’s too good looking.”  I mean I go out on the streets and people aren’t going crazy so I didn’t understand how it can be too good looking.  How can I be so pretty all of a sudden?  It was a bit confusing to me at first, but I had to start posting other pictures to prove that it was really me.  That’s why I started with the YouTube videos to tell people that it’s me.  I exist.  I’m not “lonelygirl15” and I exist.  I never considered myself a nerd or a geek, but I always watched Dungeons and Dragons and Buffy and all those things and after doing Twitter I discovered that the things I liked were considered nerdy or geeky.  

Carol Zara's original World Cup photo shoot did not feature an octopus

Sam:  So what you seemed to have done is that you have tapped into a certain niche market and you’ve become the poster girl for that sub culture. 

Carol:  Yeah.  I’ve become some sort of dream girl to them.  So if they are coming to me with all this love and positivness why would I come back at them and say “No.  I’m not a geek” or “I’m not a nerd.”  Their opinions are more important then my opinions because if I said “I am this” or “I am that” I’d just brand myself and become something that I am not already.  But if you are a true fan boy and you’ve been watching this stuff your entire life and you think I should represent your life and your generation then I’ll accept that. 

Sam:  So let’s talk about facebook.  Explain to me what happened to you. 

Carol:  It’s really really weird.  Yesterday I was on Facebook and I was looking at a friend’s photos and Facebook asked me to log in again.  [I thought] “Log in again?  What the hell?” So I logged in again and I find out that my account is disabled.  So I sent them a message asking them for an answer about what the hell happened and didn’t get an answer until today.  I tweeted about it and everybody thought it might be my photos.  I had just recently posted some photos that were provocative, but they weren’t full on nudity. 

Sam:  What were the photos? 

Did this provocative photo featuring a dead octopus get Carol Zara banned from Facebook?

Carol:  Well it all started [during the World Cup].  It started as a joke because some model was saying that she was going to run naked if her team won and another one said that she was going to give blowjobs if her team won.  Meanwhile there was this octopus getting all the scores and teams and I thought that this was hilarious.  So I was cheering for Spain when Brazil was gone and so I tweeted “I’m going to take naked pictures with an octopus if Spain wins.”  Nobody believed me but they got really excited.  I keep my word and when I say I’ll do something I usually do it.  So Spain won and I was really excited and suddenly people started tweeting me about getting naked and if I’d really do it.  I called my friend who is a very famous photographer here in Toronto named Matt Barnes and asked him if he’d be interested.  He said “Hell yeah.  No girl has ever called me to take off her clothes and put an octopus on her.  Of course I’m going to do this.”  He was perfect for it because I wanted to make it like a pin-up and homage to horror movies and he’s got that style.  So I took the photos and people couldn’t believe I actually did it.  I posted them the day after the World Cup final but many people didn’t believe that the octopus was real.

Sam:  I saw the photo.  That was a real octopus?

Carol:  Of course it was a real octopus! 

Sam:  Holy crap!  I was sure it was a fake octopus. 

Carol:  No.  Where would I find a fake octopus? 

Sam:  I don’t know.  Was it alive? 

Carol:  No, it was dead. 

Sam:  Well where would they find a dead octopus? 

Carol Zara's "test shot" with the black bars shows far less then what other Facebook profiles belonging to porn stars and Playboy models currently feature

Carol:  It was a frozen octopus.  They found it at a market.  When I got there it was in the water and I thought it was alive but it wasn’t.  Anyways I spent four hours naked with a frozen octopus on me, and afterwards people said it was a fake photo.  Some people said that we found the photo somehow and that we cropped the face and the body wasn’t mine.  I thought “What the hell? How would we find a picture like that?”  We were getting so many comments that I had to contact the photographer again and ask for another photo because even my friends were saying that it was fake.  So he sent me a picture where it looked like I was having sex with the octopus.  It was highly suggestive so I posted that picture on Facebook and I posted another one which was a test shot of me naked on the floor but I covered it with black bars.  So everyone thought when I got banned from facebook two days later that that was the reason why.  But today I get a message from Facebook telling me that my account was disabled because my behavior on the site was identified as harassing or threatening to other people on Facebook!  

Sam:  Do you think you were reported by someone? 

Carol: I have no idea.  They sent me three points [describing possible reasons for] some for my prohibited behavior.  [The first was] that I was “requesting people that I don’t know.”  I don’t do that.  At the beginning of this year my personal profile had three thousand people and it was getting crazy and I could even keep up with my actual friends.  So I got rid of all the people I don’t really know and started a fan page.  I was kind of against having a fan page for myself.  I was pretty honest with everyone.  It was not like I just did it.  I posted that I was sorry and that I had to delete people but to go to my fan page.  But [facebook] also said [I was banned] for “soliciting others for dating purposes.”  Dating on Facebook?  No way!  Not a chance that I’m looking for random dates on Facebook!  Not at all!  I mean some people do it.  It’s none of my business but I have no reason to look for dates over Facebook.  I also wasn’t contacting people for business purposes, which is against Facebook policy.  I know many people have profiles under their business name but I never did anything like that.  The only thing close to business is keeping in touch with people who I’ve worked with in the past.  

Sam:  But that’s just basic networking.  Everybody does that. 

By appearing as April O'Neil at Toronto's 2009 FanExpo, Carol Zara attracted the attention of Ninja Turtle fans everywhere, including TMNT artist Jim Lawson who later wrote that Carol was "a scary hot April O'Neil"

Carol:  It’s normal!  Yeah!  The other option was “regularly contacting strangers through unwanted inbox messages.”  When I read that I said “Oh, I get it.”  Regularly contacting my fans was considered regularly contacting strangers to [facebook].  There was a time when I was getting fifty friend requests a day [on my personal profile], and I wondered “What can I do?  Should I ignore them?”  People were going to think I was a bitch if I ignored them so I decided that I was going to send them a message and go to my fan page.  So I would send them a copy and paste message that would say “Hey hotness.  I would love to add you but I don’t use this page anymore.  You can find me at my fun page.  xoxo Carol Zara.”  That was it.  I would send them the message and I would ignore their request after they got their message. 

Sam:  Well let me ask you this.  Why do you think Facebook singled you out? 

Carol Zara fan art, like this one by comic artist Ramon Perez, has made her a virtual muse

Carol:  I don’t know.  I think because I was getting so many friend requests and telling them that I can’t add them, telling them the reason why and redirecting them to my fan page.  So out of all the reasons that facebook has told me that I am banned forever from the site, and I don’t even have the right to appeal anything, is that because a stranger contacted me and it was not me adding them as a friend but it was them adding me as a friend, and I would send them a message?  But even if Facebook ever comes to me and says that it was because of my sexy pictures, well I did some research and I thought [I’d see] how Playboy models and porn stars behave on facebook because they feed on being sexy.  So I went on [various porn stars’] profiles and found full on nudity without black bars, I found semi-nude lesbian shots and I found a lot more.  I took screen shots of everything because if I’m there, and I have black bars hiding everything, and that’s the reason why they deleted me, then either I come back or they delete everything that is not appropriate. 

Sam:  So what is your next move against Facebook? 

Carol:  I am going to keep fighting it.  Right now I’m telling my media friends what happened.  I’m not the type who will shut up.  I’m a fighter.  It’s my personality.  I don’t think its right what they did.  I had no warning.  My digitally blonde page was not deleted because it has another administrator.  My fan page was the most popular and it had four thousand fans and that was the one I lost. 

Sam:  Now let’s leave this controversy for a moment.  You are going to be making an appearance and signing autographs at the Toronto FanExpo later this month, isn’t that right? 

Carol:  Yeah.  Right now I am scheduled to do two autograph sessions at FanExpo on Friday August 27^th from 5 to 7 and Saturday August 28^th from 2 to 4.  It was very last minute.  I wasn’t going to do FanExpo but I just started getting so many messages from fans asking me to be there that I just decided that its not about me anymore but its about [my fans].  If they want me to be there then I’m going to be there.  I was there last year shooting a video.  So I contacted FanExpo and said “Here’s the deal.  I didn’t expect this but I’m getting so many messages everyday and people are asking me to be there and do you have some time for me?”  I am going to be making a video when I’m there, but I’ll be signing for a couple of hours a day.  

Sam:  So you’ve been doing this for close to a year.  You’re very good at self promotion.  Where do you hope to go with this phenomenon that you’ve created around yourself? 

Carol:  Well like I said, it’s all about the people.  It’s what they expect.  They’ve been telling me that they want to see me on a sci-fi series.  They want to see me on the live action Ninja Turtle movie.  They want to see me one day write a comic book.  They have been asking for Carol Zara action figures.  They want me to be on a show on G-4.  It’s what they want me to do and I will try to do what they want me to do.  I think it’s cool what they are telling me.  I mean, if they say “Carol, go fuck yourself” I’m going to say “No, I’m not going to do that.”  No, I think of myself as the Lady Gaga of the nerd community and I will always surprise you and I always want to make the most awesome things that you want to see me in.  I am not about small things.  I’m about making it the biggest and the best things ever! 

Who knows how this whole thing is going to end.  Will Carol Zara and her band of fan boys crush the evil empire of Facebook?  Will Facebook succeed in getting away with banning the goddess of geek from their networking tool?  Time will only tell.  However, in the meantime, don’t miss your chance to meet Carol Zara at the Toronto FanExpo on August 27^th and 28^th and lend your support.  Also, if you are angry over what Facebook did to Carol, send Facebook your thoughts and tell them how you feel.  Support Carol and her fight for an explanation! 

For more on Carol’s battle check out http://digitallyblonde.com/ for her open letter to Facebook and join the Free Zara campatin at Twitter!