Jesus fucking Christ, get some perspective. It was an internet troll who eventually became too obvious to deny. Other people twigged to it sooner. Get the fuck over it; they were right to point out that she was a troll, and they did it over your ridiculous shrieking.
Fuck outta here with that wack ass accusation. Ugh. Bullying is turning into the new race card. When someone calls you on your shit, you aren’t being bullied, you are being exposed, so don’t try to join ranks with the nerd at school who has to couragously make it through the day with some burley sixth grader trying to take his lunch money.
You can also shut up about the whole ‘it sets a precedent for witchhunting’ crap. I have been a member of this board for 5 years and have never called a poster a troll. I do believe, unless I’m forgetting one, this is my very first time. You know why I was prodded out of my cozy live-and-let-live nook? Because umkay had upped the troll game to eleventy with the notokay thread and posters I respect were still all shiney-eyed. It was time to call a spade a spade.
I honestly don’t care about if someone does some trolling. If it isn’t about something like disabilities or something, I will even post to their threads and ride the ride. I mean, who cares? It’s just the internet, I don’t care if you are lying for a bit of fun. I found this post from me in 2007, while I was searching for cases of me calling someone a troll. It pretty much establishes that I don’t mind a poster trolling it up a touch, and I don’t condone witchhunts and pile ons and trying to show that I figured a troll out and all that jazz.
The circumstances in this case were different. The poster had upped the game up and the people still being duped were starting to take on a surreal cast in their continued support of umkay. It was time for someone (PRR I do believe was that initial someone) to say, “Enough, guys, it’s time to call it.”
I hate being called a bully. Shit, I rather you call me a troll. I’ve been trollier than I have ever been a bully.
I didn’t always, but that’s beside the point. Also, have you ever noticed that you are sort of useless?
Nothing that was directed at umkay, either before or after the sezyoo reveal, rose to bullying. That’s not only insulting, it cheapens an actual problem. I will say it again - *get some perspective. *
Also, have you forgotten at some point that this was all brought about by something stirring us all up for the lulz? Your ardent defense of hypothetical innocent is wasted at this point. There’s no doubt that there’s an actual injustice going on somewhere - and completely without malice I say, why don’t you go find one?
No shit, Sherlock. If you read the post, you will see that was in response to a question of what the consequences would have been had umkay turned out to be genuine.
This whole tangent has basically been me defending my original position, and really has little to do with umkay being a troll or not.
My statement this morning was basically, yes, I was wrong, but I still support not making accusations without proof. Proof is here now, all bets are off. Thing is, it wasn’t at the time. My whole initial problem was with direct, pointed accusation before there was anything more than speculation. I don’t think that’s a good thing to do. I still don’t, and I likely never will. The response is basically, “But we were right!” Anyway, we’re going in circles now. Nothing further is going to be solved by this continued diatribe in either direction.
No. I lack the necessary introspection.
The bullying charge is not surprising. I used to get a similar reaction when I bothered checking people who sent glurge. Telling them to check out snopes seemed to be akin to putting their head in a toilet.
Who cares if there’s not really a boy with a burlap sack for a body? Just thinking he existed made me feel better about the human spirit. And I learned a lot about burlap sack bodies!
Wait. Everyone’s typing too fast. Where’d she post phony pictures?
On the other board, but they were removed.
I’m cracking up at this whole post.
Getting mad at people for staying on the fence and reserving judgment (as Sarahbellum, prr, and others did) certainly qualifies as a call to action. What other alternative does it leave?
I see. I read through (okay, skimmed) the five cached pages (though page 4 didn’t work), and while I’m not looking for the BS photos she posted, I am curious to see the part where someone recognized the fraud and everything blew up.
Like Jman, I am interested in evidence.
As convincing as your gut feel is (and, indeed, should be) to you, it does very little for me. I feel the same way about my religion: I believe because I am certain, and because I have had experiences that reinforce that certainty. But you cannot test my experiences; you cannot benefit from my internal belief; you cannot rule out the idea that I am deluding myself. So it’s not rational for you to believe simply because I do. And for this reason, I will never demand that people believe because the Bible says so, or because I say so.
So, too, here. If you became convinced that umkay was dissembling, but the only thing you could point to was a feeling, or the suspicious popularity that she engendered, then you have no call to castigate me for failing to accept your conclusions.
But I’m a big fan of being right, and a big fan of acknowledging when someone was right. This doesn’t translate to agreeing I was wrong all along not to accept the conclusion before sufficient evidence was adduced – it’s an acknowledgment that you had a better insight and ability to reach the correct conclusion on scant evidence.
I don’t regard any of the evidence adduced so far as conclusive. But for the first time, I have seen enough evidence to be suspicious.
So what happens now? Nothing, if umkay shows up tomorrow and posts about politics, the latest season of “Mad Men,” or how much it sucks when people talk loudly in movie theaters. That means that, coincidences aside, she’s likely a real person who got hammered by a fake death announcement.
But if this “outing” coincides with her never returning, then I’ll regard it as good evidence she’s slunk away in shame.
So give me a week, and I’ll serve up some hearty mea culpas.
I sadly don’t have time to read back through the last glorious twelve pages, but I thought Bellum at least was just annoyed at the finger wagging. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong.
In any case, nothing for me tops Jman’s recent attempt at impersonating Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men.
ETA: And now Juror #4 has arrived!
I’m not convinced that sezyoo is umkay but I still think umkay is a troll. She knew too much about how the board works. I think it’s someone that “knows” the Dope already.
Come on, now. I have not done any defending of umkay since the new evidence has been brought to light. I have been defending myself (and probably making more trouble for myself as well). And, well, if being a skeptic of the skeptics is my worst transgression, I’ll live with that.
I don’t think she is someone from this board at all. I do think that sezyoo and umkay are the same person. I think he or she is someone who (for some strange reason) wishes they were actually a rich paraplegic.
The level of knowledge is way too detailed to just be some troll, yanking people’s chains. I do find the whole psychology behind his/her actions to be so interesting. Why would someone wish they were paralyzed? Maybe it’s just a devote writing about his fantasies. Who knows but it’s all pretty interesting.
This seems smart.
I’m someone who bought umkay, but when Big Doubts™ started, I suggested she consider a back-channel interaction with a Mod to check her veracity - if she wanted to cut the Haters off quickly and easily - or simply hang out here long enough to build some history. No biggie either way.
I got slammed. The slamming seems kinda silly now. Tuba Diva, I know you weren’t coming directly after me when you posted after one of my threads and said folks were coming too close to hounding umkay, but in retrospect, you have to admit that simple questions should have simple answers. If she wanted to clear things up then or even now, it wouldn’t take much and the lack of simple action speaks glaringly loud.
Side note: I have decided to refer to this as the Umkay Kerfuffle or maybe even the Umkerfuffle ;). A silly name to keep this in a bit of perspective.
Thank you, Jman, for expressing my exact feelings today, word for word.
Oh my God. Bricker, you are just “suspicious” at this point? I know it must be embarrassing for you because you pretty much went all-in for umkay’s story, but a lot of other people did too. There’s no shame in it. Cut your losses now, dude.
I was leaning towards thinking umkay was a troll pretty early on just because she was very well-spoken and wordy and clearly knew her way around message boards even though she was a newbie. Maybe 60%. Then as her story became more impressive and dramatic, maybe 70%. After the notokay business, major alarm bells went off. 85%, maybe 90. And now that an entire other persona has been uncovered on another board with similar writing style and personal details? Come on. Come on, we weren’t born yesterday, were we?
Incidentally I didn’t use the quote function or any board code like boldface in this post because I’m posting from my phone and it’s fucking annoying to do that stuff when phone posting. Which was another thing that made me lift an eyebrow at umkay’s very well formatted and super long posts. I know the voice software is good but still, taking the time to boldface user names etc seemed a bit odd to me.
I don’t see this as a victory on my behalf. I don’t like to see a board I’ve been invested in for 11+ years be taken by someone’s lies. It sucks all around for everyone. There’ll be “I told you sooos!” and “well at least I wasn’t an asshole!” on both sides, but really both sides were sort of being assholes in their stubbornness and “neener neener!” attitudes.
I mostly clamed up as soon as I saw some people not being able to remain calm and realistic about the matter. This is why I don’t think anyone is an asshole for simply being honest about the matter in the face of some suspicious circumstantial evidence. Assholery only counts when it gets personal.