POLL: Honestly, did you believe Umkay's story before she was outed?

[2gigch1]

I bought it, but why not? It was a good read, fiction or fact. Indeed the totality of the meltdown was even more fun.

And that's just it - here's a bunch of internet strangers writing far too much on a message board.

I hate to admit it but I like how this all played out. No puppies were harmed in the making of this epic. It was entertaining. Do I support liars and trolls? No, but when this was all said & done the twists and turns were fun to read, the moment someone actually figured it out and started to drop clues was a riot to read, and in the end I got several hours of amusement out of the whole thing, free of charge.

Am I a shmuck for believing it? Sure. But in real life I believed my 2 ex-wives. The first set me $35k. The second one has put me back $10k and counting and I lost my house.

So keep the internet lies coming. I can afford these!

[lisacurl]

Originally Posted by China Guy

There was a thread maybe 5 years ago about a Male to Female trans-sexual that was an elementary school teacher, who went back to teach at the same elementary school. IIRC, it started out pretty captivating,... especially if you weren't really paying attention. Then you kinda get drawn into the drama. "What a cool story, and it's a Doper, wow, I'm vicariously part of this coolness going on." That thread couldn't sustain itself for very long. Posting during class breaks or something.

That thread occurred to me as well when reading Umkay's original thread. That's when I first suspected bullshit.

[StGermain]

I had my doubts from the beginning and didn't post in either her Ask The or Resurrection thread. The one thing that made me doubt my doubts was that people with actual disabilities seemed to believe her, but I really couldn't get there. I felt it was better to keep quiet than possible make a fool o myself.

StG

[Baal Houtham]

Originally Posted by StGermain

I had my doubts from the beginning and didn't post in either her Ask The or Resurrection thread.

About like this. I selected the Unsure option in the poll.

[TreacherousCretin]

No.

[Napier]

Bought it pretty nearly to the end. When people started questioning her identity I PMd her with one of the spy movie ideas about how she could safely prove her identity (and amusingly not one of the more reasonable ideas either). I wondered if she'd reply (she didn't) and thought this was a weak test of whether she was for real. So, only mild questioning in my mind well after others were leading the charge. The ATMB notice of her banning was still pretty surprising.

And, though I did feel hurt about her "death", overall I leave this more fascinated than anything else. I would buy in all over again.

[Hippy Hollow]

I believed her, pretty much all the way until the resurrection.

Nothing seemed that farfetched to me. I know of - not necessarily know, but know of - very wealthy people who have family members with disabilities. I thought one of those people came to the Dope. Also, she mentioned she had lurked for a long time, so I thought she knew the lingo... didn't surprise me either.

I guess I didn't see her as overly perky. I mean, she talked about waking up every day and thinking for the first instant that she was AB... that seems pretty, you know, real. But it also seemed that she accepted what had happened (after spending some time depressed and not wanting to go back to HS, for instance) - being forced by her parents and having rough-and-tumble brothers who also employed her.

Now the fawning, that happens here. I thought it was a little OTT but beyond the control of the poster.

I think my first clue was the death. Seemed too sudden for someone who didn't seem to have any life-threatening issues (although they could spring up at any time). Knowing how other Doper spouses/sibs/family members have informed the board of their loved one's death, it just didn't seem to be real.

The precision of her posts, as pointed out by Giraffe, I think, was a clue, especially when it was noted that the posts went up in very short intervals. Even with carers, Dragon, etc. that seemed a bit unrealistic.

[Jake Jones]

Count me amongst the fish. I swallowed the whole story, until the fake death. That was a bit over the top. Killing off fake personas is kind of par for the course with the type that gets off on these games. Wally is another example. The behavior is just so weird, I don't get it. It's so foreign to me that I just haven't developed a bullshit meter to these kind of people.

[tesseract]

I totally bought it and I found the Ask the... thread and the devotee thread pretty fascinating. I had never heard of the concept of devotees before --- wow! It's interesting to discover amazingly weird subcultures that are teeming with life. Anyway, I found the way she wrote engaging-- amusing turns of phrase, etc. -- as well as substantively interesting. When she died I genuinely felt sad. Now, in hindsight, and in retrospect, I was gullible, and that was obviously a blinking neon sign of fakeness. Also in retrospect, she was way too perfect and I was gullible for not suspecting her in the least. I also found the mania when she resurrected, and then when her fake alterego from the other boards surfaced, absolutely entertaining. I was fascinated that someone would put so much energy and time into a fake persona (and sad for him/her), but rather bewildered by people who felt "betrayed." Also bewildered/entertained/amazed by the minor civil war amongst the always-suspicious, the newly-suspicious, the never-suspicious, the doubtful, the staunch believers, the right-but-could-have-been-wrong, the wrong-but-could-have-been-right, and various other factions. That was entertainment in itself. I'm now a little letdown to tell you the truth.

As others have said, I think he/she did a very good deed in connection with helping the other poster advocate for her newly-quadriplegic father. That in itself redeems her and makes everything worthwhile, I'd say.

[Omega Glory]

I was unsure until the evidence started piling up. I read the first few pages of the 'Ask the...' thread and something seemed off, because everything seemed so carefully crafted. I ignored my doubts because there probably are people out there living lives straight out of made for TV movies. Once she 'died' it was game over.

[grayhairedmomma]

I mostly believed her, but thought it odd that she was able to post replies so quickly. Also, having multiple one-night stands in that condition was a little eye-brow raising. I got a little annoyed with the "Ask the..." thread after people praised her for sticking up for herself, and stopped reading them shortly after that. I didn't know about the supposed illness or fake death notice until well after the pit thread was started.

[Electric Warrior]

I voted "unsure". I was reading along, not participating in the other threads, because everything did just seem a little bit outlandish. Especially the amount of formatting in the posts - I mean, compare blinkie's posts, the differences are clear. I wanted proof, and idly considered asking the mods to verify umkay, but I decided to just wait until someone found inconsistencies in her story a la Kaitlyn. Looks like umkay was a little more clever than some of her predecessors, so it was a bit harder than just combing over her posts here.

[Cunctator]

I voted 'Other'. I have no idea who Umkay is/was.

[Ambivalid]

I thought she was full of shit from the 'nails-on-chalkboard' beginning. Now I did think she was a quadriplegic, given her voluminous knowledge about the smallest details of the injury; but I just thought she was making up all the 'fabulous' stories as a sort of trollery. She was a quadriplegic troll, I guess was my first impression. It wasn't until later on that I saw her (or him) for what he/she truly was.

I have gone back and forth as to what I actually think Umkay was; a devotee or a pretender, and I now say that Umkay was indeed a devotee (a male) who had pretender tendencies and pretended to be a disabled woman online (which is actually not uncommon). The DPW spectrum is fluid and their is much overlap between the disorders; devotees can also be pretenders and pretenders are always wannabees. It's confusing, I know.

[Ambivalid]

Originally Posted by Ambivalid

I thought she was full of shit from the 'nails-on-chalkboard' beginning. Now I did think she was a quadriplegic, given her voluminous knowledge about the smallest details of the injury; but I just thought she was making up all the 'fabulous' stories as a sort of trollery. She was a quadriplegic troll, I guess was my first impression. It wasn't until later on that I saw her (or him) for what he/she truly was.

I have gone back and forth as to what I actually think Umkay was; a devotee or a pretender, and I now say that Umkay was indeed a devotee (a male) who had pretender tendencies and pretended to be a disabled woman online (which is actually not uncommon). The DPW spectrum is fluid and their is much overlap between the disorders; devotees can also be pretenders and pretenders are always wannabees. It's confusing, I know.

Here's a link that helps explain things.

[VanillaGorilla]

I totally believed it, up to, and including, the resurrection - though I didn't see the Umkay is dead post until after the resurrection thread, so don't know if I would have bought that particular lie.

[furt]

Originally Posted by Ambivalid

Now I did think she was a quadriplegic, given her voluminous knowledge about the smallest details of the injury; but I just thought she was making up all the 'fabulous' stories as a sort of trollery. She was a quadriplegic troll, I guess was my first impression. It wasn't until later on that I saw her (or him) for what he/she truly was.

This, more or less. My BS meter was pinged, though I couldn't be arsed to figure out why, exactly. That happens a lot here, actually.

[FairyChatMom]

I voted Other - I never read the original thread. I don't generally bother with "Ask The ..." threads anyway. But the "death" announcement and subsequent "I'm not dead yet" thread seemed a bit off to me - I can't say why exactly, but something about both OPs felt wrong.

[TokyoBayer]

I voted other as well, since I hadn't read any of the treads until (s)he posted about not being dead. When I saw that a few posters I know, including China Guy were supporting her, then I didn't suspect anything.

I have no idea if I would have gotten it or not. Does anyone remember that former self-proclaimed Green Beret guy? I was pretty suspicious of him right away, but that's probably because I've known people IRL who claim to be former snipers, etc.

[Barkis is Willin']

As the last remaining participant of the SDMB who has not weighed in on umkay, I will take the opportunity to do so now. I did not participate in her threads because wheelchairs do not interest me and I assumed the devotee thread was about a religious fanatic, never putting together that the OP was the same for both. By the time I became aware of umkay and notokay the whole thing was starting to boil over and, although I have remained silent thus far, the entire episode has provided glorious entertainment. So, I voted "other."

[Jophiel]

Originally Posted by Barkis is Willin'

By the time I became aware of umkay and notokay the whole thing was starting to boil over

I'm guessing many of us would have had no idea any drama took place except for seeing a thread lock icon and clicking on it to see what happened there.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

I believed "her" for most of the ride.

It is my default reaction to posts, and I do not feel that doing so harmed me in any way.


mmm

[Barkis is Willin']

Originally Posted by Jophiel

I'm guessing many of us would have had no idea any drama took place except for seeing a thread lock icon and clicking on it to see what happened there.

It was the thread in ATMB requesting proof before posting about a member's death that caught my eye. From there I was able to track the story and, like I said, a few people were starting to get wise.

[Machine Elf]

I believed it until this morning. Out of boredom, I stopped following the "Ask" thread a couple of weeks ago. Have been out of town for about a week, and was surprised to see the craziness this morning. Still don't fully understand what went down.

Here's what I understand so far:

-Umkay went AWOL for a short time.
-A poster named Notokay claimed to be a sibling of Umkay and announced her death.
-Umkay reappeared shortly after and proclaimed herself still living.
...
-people started questioning the credibility of Umkay.
-...
-Umkay is now banned.

Why did people stop trusting her?
What happened that resulted in her being banned?

[RTFirefly]

I didn't see any reason to not take her at face value, so I did. In particular, other wheelchair-dependent posters confirmed that she wasn't leading anyone astray about life with a disability, so I had no reason to doubt her on that score.

I thought the adulation for her got a bit over the top, and hadn't checked in on either of her threads for nearly two weeks before her disappearance, partly because I just didn't have much time to post here, and partly because of a sense that she already had enough fans and didn't need one more.

So I missed the disappearance, as well as NotOkay's brief sockhood on this board, so I can't say whether I would have been taken in by any of that. By the time I checked back in, NotOkay had already been banned, and umkay had reappeared, but hadn't yet been banned.

At that point, I was pretty agnostic about whether she was real or not; I figured the truth would reveal itself soon enough without my help.

[BMalion]

Believed in her almost up to the banning.

But I redeemed myself with a hilarious post moments before the banning. phew

[Capt Kirk]

Originally Posted by Machine Elf

I believed it until this morning. Out of boredom, I stopped following the "Ask" thread a couple of weeks ago. Have been out of town for about a week, and was surprised to see the craziness this morning. Still don't fully understand what went down.

Here's what I understand so far:

-Umkay went AWOL for a short time.
-A poster named Notokay claimed to be a sibling of Umkay and announced her death.
-Umkay reappeared shortly after and proclaimed herself still living.
...
-people started questioning the credibility of Umkay.
-...
-Umkay is now banned.

Why did people stop trusting her?
What happened that resulted in her being banned?

She is a troll

Short version

Smart suspicious Dopers found a busted troll on a what to expect when you are expecting site, she used several of umkay's turns of phrase and wrote in the exact same style, mods were notified, she was banned

Crazyhorse and others did the heavy lifting, search the Pit thread for CH's post, it is pretty damning

CAPT

[ugly ripe tomato]

Originally Posted by Machine Elf

Why did people stop trusting her?
What happened that resulted in her being banned?

While some of us were suspicious from the start, the "umkay is dead" post followed by the "I'm not dead" thread seems to be what made a lot of people suspicious.

As for the what, a bit of online sleuthing turned up someone known as "sezyoo" who posted on a maternity message board about being a pregnant C4 quad. umkay and sezyoo had a very similar style (using the same turns of phrase, abbreviations, emoticons etc) and similar stories (both belonged to rich banking families). Both had a stealth family member (NotOkay was ostensibly umkay's brother, sezyoo's "husband" posted on the mommy board) appear to post about a tragedy.

She got banned because according to TubaDIva misrepresenting yourself on the board is a bannable offense.

[RTFirefly]

Originally Posted by Machine Elf

Why did people stop trusting her?
What happened that resulted in her being banned?

Here's the official announcement of her banning; here's the ATMB thread about her banning.

A good place to start, though, would be the top of p.8 of the I Pit NotOkay thread, where Sarabellum1976 finds a poster with a very similar story (high C4 quad with no money worries) and very similar stylistic nuances (KWIM?) on another message board, who was outed as a fake there after a month or so - shortly before umkay started posting here.

There was a lot more detail to the similarities than that; it wasn't just a couple of things.

[LaurenIpsum]

I totally believed everything until the death announcement. I hadn't been online much over the weekend, so on Monday morning, I decided to check the "Ask the girl in the wheelchair" thread, which I had been following with interest. Then I got to the post where a mod said, "I'm closing the thread due to the death of the OP." I immediately thought, "Oh, this is bullshit. She has been living as a quadriplegic for 10 years in good health, and within a month of joining the boards and becoming a popular poster, she's suddenly dead?"

So at that point, I don't know what I really thought. Whether the death announcement was just fake, or the entire "Ask the" thread. I didn't take much time to think about it, because then I got to the post where the mod said "I'm opening the thread again." So I looked up the death announcement thread, and got to the part where Umkay returned, I really thought that NotOkay was just a random drive-by troll who had taken advantage of her absence to stir up some trouble. Although at that point I started finding the whole thing fishy, but didn't really have anything to base it on. I was reminded of an incident on Metafilter I'd heard of where a long-time poster disappeared and his "wife" (really the same person) posted his death announcement. Then the truth came out and he tried to explain it as a social experiment or something.

When I started reading the Pit thread where people were posting suspicions about her, I at first didn't want to believe someone could put this much energy into a fake persona for so long. But once the evidence started piling up, I had to admit that there was no way she could be real.

As others have said, I don't feel that hurt or angry. And we did learn a lot about quadriplegia, since it seems like she did have her facts mostly right. And we learned about devotees, pretenders and wannabes - something I wasn't even aware of. I got a lot of entertainment out of the original "Ask the" thread, and even more entertainment watching the truth come out in the Pit thread. And I learned a lesson about how fakers like this are more common than I thought.

[Deegeea]

Didn't notice Umkay at all till I read a thread about her being dead and it not being true. People whose death is announced to a message board and turn out to be alive are at least slightly fishy. People who post a lot on a message board about their disability and also have their deaths announced falsely are very fishy (two attention getting features)... nothing seemed to say real to me, and several things said fake. So I read the not really dead thread, thought "must be fake" and went on to read other topics.

I have no idea if I would've believed them if I'd read one of their pre-death-announced threads.

[Mauvaise]

I picked other because I was completely unaware of him/her/it until the death-notice thread.

[Larry Borgia]

Other. I wasn't completely unaware of the ask the person in the wheelchair thread, but I didn't pay too much attention to it until all the drama started. I tend to take people at face value here, unless they're asking for money or saying something truly outrageous. It's too much of a headache to read this board being suspicious of everyone.

[Shakester]

Other. I'd like to claim that I saw through umkay's bullshit, but to be honest I didn't pay enough attention to notice.

I have a real-world 30+ years friendship with a person who uses a wheelchair, so the concept of someone in a wheelchair having a sex life is not, to me, amazing. And I never did feel the need to heap praise on the physically disabled because I never did think of them as being particularly different to me. Being disabled is just shitty luck, it doesn't automatically make someone virtuous and admirable.

[Bridget Burke]

Other: I never opened either of her threads. But I've found the fallout quite entertaining.

[Ethilrist]

I was willing to believe she was telling the truth. However, I also feel that anybody who's posting and not using their real name has something to hide.

I didn't read a whole lot of the "why she's been banned" thread(s); they seemed to be saying that she was banned because of suspicious activity, not because she's not a quadriplegic (some people are saying that they figured she wasn't, and I haven't seen any evidence of that).

[olivesmarch4th]

Unless I missed something yesterday, I still don't understand why people are so convinced she's a troll.

[kayT]

Just a reminder that since the number of posts per page is a user option, it works better to reference a post # instead of a page #.

[even sven]

I was skeptical from a few pages in to the "Ask the..." thread. As was mentioned earlier, every Doper has people who don't like them. We are a diverse bunch, and any fully rounded person is bound to get on someone's bad side. A new comer with a fantastic story and inspiring outlook who manages to get everyone on their team immediately is pretty suspicious. It's just not that easy for a real, flawed human being to win us over like that.

After the death post, I pretty much knew.

[Barkis is Willin']

Originally Posted by olivesmarch4th

Unless I missed something yesterday, I still don't understand why people are so convinced she's a troll.

This, from Crazyhorse, was a pretty critical piece of evidence.

[robardin]

I read the initial OPs and while they seemed strange, it didn't seem impossible or completely implausible to me. I am not acquainted with anybody paraplegic but I have used Dragon Dictation software, so her ability to write lengthy posts with smileys and punctuation and all that being accounted for by that seemed out of tune with my own experience. To explain this she claimed to have helper staff on hand who aided her in entering her posts, which also seemed odd; if I ever were to post details about my dating or sexual history or whatnot it certainly wouldn't be via a proxy agent. But then again, if the kernel of her story were true she would have little choice in the matter, and could have been doing things by proxy for years, plus have whatever number of customized shortcuts, etc., available to her computer interface.

I couldn't really fathom why would someone fake something like that? Yes, "for the attention", but there are other ways to do that. Until clearly outed I would give a poster, especially a reasonably eloquent one, the benefit of the doubt. Sure, she could be exaggerating a lot of the details, but wholesale making all those details up in a "should I date a devoté" thread?

Besides, in my past experience most Internet trollers are in for a quick chain yank, and are not at all subtle. And even the more subtle ones have but a needle or two in their etui, so to speak - they return to the same topics and angles again and again. umkay on the other hand kept it going for quite a while, with a variety of angles. For example, when she told someone their father was receiving terrible care while bedridden - that was a reply that was NOT centered on "herself". That kind of display of compassionate outrage is not what I would associate with trolls.

I guess this was my first RL (or rather, first-hand VL) enccounter with an Internet troll whose goal is adoration/sympathy rather than outrage. I never participated in the umkay threads because I had a feeling the whole time there was a significant amount of exaggeration therein (though not to the full level of apparent fabrication as eventually exposed), and my first thought on reading umkay's furious denial of death was "Clearly NotOkay was her sock".

[maggenpye]

I've been more interested in the reaction threads than anything posted by umkay, so I never questioned her story. I feel for everyone who got emotionally invested and hurt by the deception.

The research was impressive and the smackdown deserved, purely MHO.

Got to say robardin, this is a brilliant line:

even the more subtle ones have but a needle or two in their etui, so to speak

and I am storing it away for future use.

[EmAnJ]

I was taken in, up until just before the banning.

I do hope a lot of what he/she posted about being a paraplegic was true, however, as I really learned a lot.

[Giraffe]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

It is my default reaction to posts, and I do not feel that doing so harmed me in any way.

You might think that, and it's understandable, but you're wrong. You now have syphilis. I know, it doesn't make sense, but that's the world we live in.

[Lamia]

I read a little of the early parts of umkay's two threads, but didn't find them interesting so didn't follow them and didn't really think much about them. I didn't even see the "she's dead!" thread, I only heard about it from the related Pit thread. So I wasn't paying enough attention to be suspicious. I'm not sure what I would have thought if I had been paying more attention. But from what I've since learned about umkay's posting history, I like to think I would have noticed the resemblance to the weird Number Six/Kaitlyn hoax we had back in '04/'05.

As others have mentioned, this poster claimed to be a male-to-female transsexual (not to mention an adoptee from North Korea) who taught elementary school in Texas. While the specifics are quite different from umkay's claims, these hoaxes strike me as thematically similar -- the whole "I'm so spunky and adorable despite my hardships, I'm doing much better than most people in my (unusual) situation, I'm surrounded by wonderful people who support me, and I even have a love interest who accepts me! Would you like to hear another detailed anecdote about my strange yet fabulous life? I hope so, because I rarely post about anything else!" thing.

Originally Posted by Ambivalid

I have gone back and forth as to what I actually think Umkay was; a devotee or a pretender, and I now say that Umkay was indeed a devotee (a male) who had pretender tendencies and pretended to be a disabled woman online (which is actually not uncommon).

I don't think I'd ever even heard of this sort of thing before, but what you say here is basically my best guess about umkay's motives. I think umkay is a man who is sexually obsessed with disabled women, and that the thread about dating a devotee was based on his fantasies of meeting a beautiful quadriplegic who wouldn't find him totally creepy. The guy described in that thread is probably based on the real umkay.

[Avarie537]

I didn't pay attention to any of it anyway.

[WordMan]

Bought it, but with the death notice and I'm Back! thread, gently suggested she verify her veracity with a Mod and the wheels came off.

[Feyrat]

As someone who's spent a lot of time in the online fandom, MMO and RP communities... yeah. Smelled that troll a mile away, but didn't feel the need to say anything because hey, if it's not hurting anyone, it's no skin off my nose is it.

The pseudocide made me laugh and shake my head, I've seen SO many of those. The sad part was how many people were genuinely upset about it.

[ZipperJJ]

I didn't see a reason to care whether or not she was real. I read her threads every couple days when I was bored. I wasn't a fan of the "fawning" though.

When I saw the "Umkay is dead" thread, just the OP, my first reaction was "oh, she was a troll."

So yeah I bought it until I was jarred out of it.

I have enjoyed the wealth of discussion "she" has brought, between her threads and the Pit thread and the ATMB thread. I'm glad nobody lost any money (the Doper who paid for her membership got his money back) and I hope nobody got their feelings too seriously hurt. And I am kind of glad Quasimodem wasn't here to see any of it.

[garygnu]

Originally Posted by ZipperJJ

...
I have enjoyed the wealth of discussion "she" has brought, between her threads and the Pit thread and the ATMB thread...

Yeah, the ripples have been more entertaining than the pebble dropping.