Now Everyone Knows

In her twenties, Tiên Huỳnh turned to Facebook as an escape from the routine of office life in central Vietnam. Shy in person, she invented an alternative identity quite unlike her normal self—and one that attracted attention in the process.

That pleased her. What did not please her was the discovery that people were saying things about her that had nothing to do with her avatar and that went far beyond anything she had posted about herself. What had begun as an innocent search for distraction led to months, then years, of bewildering intrusions into her privacy.

Far from hiding behind her public persona, she found herself exposed and manipulated.

In this memoir, Tiên Huỳnh recounts the effect on her sleep, her relationships and her ability to work. She describes her growing conviction that unidentified individuals or agencies were monitoring her and interfering in her affairs, and notes the isolation of finding herself increasingly defined by what others appeared to know or believe about her.

What happens when someone loses control of their own story, and finds their sense of identity challenged by the accounts of others? Tiên Huỳnh believes that experiences such as hers expose a troubling gap in our understanding: when no independent mechanism exists to establish what is real, what grounds does each person rely on to interpret reality?