Pretty fucking stupid, is where. If **Umkay **had been viewing the SD WITHOUT being logged in (I do it all the time), the troll would have busted easily by her posting “Bullshit” immediately. Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the cleverness?
Look, like I said, if Umkay wants to post here, and not be a one-trick pony posting exclusively about quadraplegic issues, then she will and it doesn’t matter if she tried playing a trick on you all or not. But if she continues to post on “her” issues to the exclusion of every other subject, or if she has mysterious absences followed by more sensational “Umkay has DIED for realls this time!!” posts, then I think you’re getting played.
Yes, I know you can read without being logged in. My whole point is that the ENTIRE case against Umkay is so circumstantial, and frankly not very damningly circumstantial…and yet people are SO sure that she is obviously fake. There is much more evidence that she’s real, and yet because one person was a jerk, this woman is being just dumped on with very little reason.
Again…if I’m wrong, there are no consequences. If the accusers in this thread are wrong, you’ve just totally shit on someone whose only crime was having an emergency. I can live with being fooled…I’m just amazed how many people are willing to do the latter.
If there was overwhelming evidence, I’d think thee was some merit, but so far, the only evidence anyone seems to have is “it seems fishy.”.
[QUOTE=me]
I’m not saying that I KNOW them to be one and the same, just that that’s the likeliest explanation to me, given the timing.
[/QUOTE]
Time will tell, as I keep saying. If she continues to post, and if she posts on a variety of subjects, as every other poster does, and if this dies down without further drama and repeated “Umkay has DIED!!” posts, then I’m probably wrong (unless she has a George-Costanza-like stubbornness). But I hope not–I’m kinda enjoying the spectacle of so many Dopers being played like this.
Anyway, I’m done with the pitting…if umkay for some reason ends up being a troll, then oh well, I got played…really it’s no skin off my nose. Hope the rest of you feel OK if it goes the other way. Back to my life…
Posted a bunch of plagiarized stuff. Faked his death. Stayed ‘dead’, which is something of a key point. I don’t think even the ‘daughter’ character who announced the ‘death’ stuck around.
Actually, you’re right. To say that she was never in love was not the right thing to say nor was in what I was really intending to say. Yes, in fact, if her wheelchair were reason enough to end a relationship then I’d say that the guys were never in love with her. I asked her, originally in her “Ask the…” thread, if she had ever truly been in love. Now can one be in love when it’s unreciprocated? Truly? I’d say no. True love is a symbiotic thing. It may not last the same for both partners, but at least it’s felt at one point by both. But this is more of a philosophical argument and not appropriate for the post. My answer should have been simply ‘the guys were never in love with you’. I am guilty, once again, of clumsy wording.
If I recall, however, blinkie posted only in the “Ask the Guy with Locked In Syndrome” thread for awhile because, despite his multiple interests, it takes a lot of time for him to compose and post.
Likewise, umkay has stated she feels some obligation to answer in the “Ask the Gal in the Wheelchair” thread and it’s taking up quite a bit of her posting time. Her lack of posting in other threads is actually consistent with being disabled, and compare to it some other new arrivals who rack up a dozen new threads the first day and definitely out-post even eloquent umkay.
As for the fancy formatting and emoticons and such - she’s already touched on it, but seriously people, you think it’s HARD to type a semi-colon followed by a close parenthesis to generate a winking smilie? Here, let’s try it: Heck, I haven’t any special training or practice or incentive but I’m pretty sure I could stick a pen in my mouth right now and bang out those two with the improvised mouthstick.
Locked in syndrome is rare enough that it’s likely someone with it will appear on TV or in a newspaper. Quadriplegia, alas, is not so rare as that and unless it’s a football player or prior celebrity there’s no reason to think a person suffering it will appear in any notable mass media.
On another message board a group of posters disputed my claim to be a pilot and a woman (much too long a story to go into). Despite pictures, confirmation by people who knew me, and a lunch with one of the chief moderators on the board (who happens to be an Air Force pilot and confirmed both my gender and the validity of my pilot’s license - that wasn’t why we had lunch together but since we were, what the hell, right?) there are to this day a group of people who doubt the veracity of my gender and flying skills.
As I said, for some people there will never be sufficient proof. So why get on the merry-go-round?
She only NEEDS a single mani-pedi per season because they last so long on her. I’m certain that if the occasion was special enough she could get one whenever she wanted to or felt the need.
The whole, “You’re accusing me of trolling? Well, I obviously could post proof of my identity but I choose not to because you just wouldn’t believe it anyway so the whole exercise would be pointless, etc. etc.” thing is pretty much classic trollery. Are you guys new to the Internet or what?
I’m still not 100% sure either way. If umkay posted some kind of evidence (and it’s not true that there’s literally nothing she could do that would work as evidence; hell, a photo of herself next to a computer logged into the SDMB would do it for me), or even just hung around and turned into a regular poster, that might sway me. But so far all signs point to troll.
It wouldn’t be hard, but I would find it a disturbing precedent to set. So far as I know, no one else has ever been asked to do such a thing.
Frankly, maintaining what imperfect anonymity is available here is one of the draws. If I were suddenly required to provide proof of my existence here I’m not certain I’d stay around. It’s much like the complaining some people do about the use of usernames instead of a person’s legal name in forums - OMG! If they aren’t ashamed of who they are/what they believe why don’t they use their real name? If umkay isn’t a troll why doesn’t she use her real name/prover her existence? Well, because no one else is required to do that here.
Not to mention the “problem” that many people don’t have a Facebook page, don’t appear on TV, and so on.
Believe in umkay or don’t believe in her, but don’t single her out for identity requirements no one else has been or is subjected to.
She’s not Santa Claus. I think the phrase you’re looking for here is “Believe her or don’t believe her.”
Although your choice of phrase is perhaps somewhat telling. She’s not just a poster on the SDMB who may or may not be yanking our collective chain! She’s a symbol! Of everything that is right with the world! Believe in her, man!
As to this defense being used any time anyone is asked to provide basic proof for fantastic claims; :dubious: Yes, of course there will always be un-convincable skeptics who can’t be persuaded. Let’s forget about that (relatively) small bunch and consider the much greater number of people who would be satisfied with just a small bit of proof.
Slight OT, but speaking as someone married to someone who has yet another variant on SCI…
Yeah, a quad and a motorized wheelchair would be more of an obstacle to me than Ambivalid’s situation (and not that it’s anyone’s business but what the hell, it’s always TMI time on the Dope, even though my spouse doesn’t normally use a chair he still needs to self-cath in order to piss. Yay, even in SCIland everyone is different.) I don’t know if it would be a total deal-killer or not, but seriously, Ambivalid, I’m totally confident that if a person I loved was in your situation with your sort of injury and impairment I could deal with it and it wouldn’t stop me from joining a long-term relationship. If that hypothetical person had umkay’s level of disability… I dunno. I truly do not know. I’d like to think I could overcome my reservations and that love would triumph over all but if I am honest… yes, that sort of situation would be an obstacle. A serious one.
Sure, Ambivalid, you’ve got issues with dating and body image and I would never want to minimize that, but from where I’m sitting I think she’s got a point. She is at more of a disadvantage in the meeting/dating/mating arena than you are.
Or we could just laugh at the truthers and birthers like Donald Trump who is still insisting Obama was born in Kenya to non-citizen parents despite all the evidence against such claims. Or those who continue to insist 9/11 was an inside job controlled demolition.
If a poster is a troll or a fake that will sooner or later come out. If it does, then shame on them, not shame on those who believed a good story.
and in that thread there’s a fair amount of “eh, maybe he was a troll and faked his death, but whatevs, does it really matter?” the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Heck, I haven’t any special training or practice or incentive but I’m pretty sure I could stick a pen in my mouth right now and bang out those two with the improvised mouthstick.