Yes.
Wait a minute, I used to date Pringles. Sure, it seems obvious now, but why would a pressed potato chip-like snack pretend to…oh never mind.
Damn, you people are cynical. Not so much for entertaining the possibility of fakery – yes, it might be true, you’re very clever – but for the level of confidence on display from some quarters.
And I would expect a modern-day quad to be extremely adept using the internet, writing things on the computer, etc.; what the hell else are you gonna do all day? That it is to say, it’s just so much easier to work and socialize digitally than otherwise, and, once you get good at using the speech-recognition software/mouth stick/carers/etc., you’re not disabled on the internet, you know? I’d be on the computer 14 hours a day.
I’ve eaten a few Pringles in my day. It should have been obvious even back then they weren’t straight (I mean seriously, look at the curves on those babies).
And damnit I am not Bi! I was young and experimenting with snack foods like everybody else in the day. I only eat Lays now!
Good point Varlosz. I don’t think Umkay was a troll. I will entertain the possibilty and hope some things get checked out. But like others have posted, the damage I’d do assuming and “knowing” she was one and that might be wrong greatly outwieghs the damage I’d did the opposite.
Speak for yourself. I think she’s one of the wittier members of the board. When someone dies here, it’s custom to pay one’s respects by enumerating the good traits of the deceased. If NotOkay hadn’t been a troll, and umkay was actually dead, there would be absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about that thread.
I’m inclined to believe that she is an actual person. I’ve been on the other side of this before, when everybody assumes you’re lying, and it sucks. So better to err on the side of caution. Generally I trust people until they give me a reason not to.
Skydive?
(If I was a quadriplegic I’d probably spend a lot of time on the Internet too, but by umkay’s reports her life is extremely full, so that doesn’t really work.)
If the greater majority of this board is more susceptible to this sort of trolling, it stands to reason, it’ll attract more long-con trolls.
Cynicism is far different than skepticism. And the internet has proven to be worthy of great skepticism.
Okay, so we’ve got a poster that comes to prominence through a “Devotee” thread.
Let’s have a nice voyeuristic thread about whether or not the quadriplegic chick should date a guy that admires and dreams of taking care of a quadriplegic chick. She proceeds to tell us all about devotees and questions their motives. I bet a pretty goodly amount of the SDMB peeps have never even heard of this little fetish group, so it’s interesting stuff.
Everyone loves the thread, and someone suggests that she starts an “Ask the…” thread, which she immediately obliges us with.
She’s a new poster on the SDMB, of course, but she knows exactly what it takes to get a "Ask the… " thread going and keep it going. She tells us all about the fine details of being a quadriplegic (stuff that a **guy that admires and dreams about taking care of a quadriplegic ** might be likely to know about.
Suspicious?
Now let’s note that the poster is allegedly a young, attractive, single, and wealthy lady. Fap fap fap material for the guy that admires and dreams about taking care of a quadriplegic, much?
Very suspicious.
Now, let’s add a liberal dash of “OMG a troll said I was dead but I’m not really dead!” Drama! Lots of attention! Yay!!1!
Yes, the Bullshit-o-meter is pegged now.
I have the feeling if any other rich hot Thank Maude blonde posted in that style, she’d be the recipient of a little snark.
If umkay is legit and I accuse her of trolling, then I’m an asshole. If she’s a troll but I give her the benefit of a doubt, then she’s the asshole and I’m just a sucker. It’s just my personal preference, but I’d rather be a sucker than an asshole. Internet trolls are a sad group of people who deserve more pity than scorn, IMO, as long as they’re not trolling for dollars- then they deserve to DIAF and EABOD. It’s just the Internet, folks. Some people think that means it’s Serious Business, but no, it’s just the fucking Internet. Don’t take it so seriously. Umkay has been a more entertaining poster in a month them most of us have been in years(including yours truly)- what else do you want from her?
That’s what’s so lame. The mentality that you’re some kind of asshole for holding some justified skepticism on the veracity of someone’s story.
Being a huge advocate of healthy skepticism, I’d rather this place not become well-known for it’s high sucker to skeptic ratio.
Umkay - Here’s what you need to do to fix this.
Make a video blog - something that quickly addresses the situation - heck, it’s practically standup comedy gold material - throw it on YouTube, and put the link here on SDMB.
I will be first in line to apologize for being a doubter.
Who agrees?
Riiiight. Because everyone knows that a YouTube video is the gold standard of truth and can’t be faked.
I’d never require a poster here to have to come out of anonymity to prove herself to the board. But it’s unfortunately escalated to the level of needing some sort of substantiation. Perhaps through the administrators, at least.
For myself, I wouldn’t expect an apology if a message board doubted the veracity of who I claimed to be; it’s the nature of anonymity and the internet, it’s not really a big deal.
But if she does provide evidence that she is who she says she is, I’d apologize all the same. :shrug:
There are quite a few clever and witty posters though. They still don’t get a bunch of people going *on *and *on *about how impossibly awesome they are. If she is real, then yes, she has an uncommonly good attitude about her circumstances in life. She writes fairly well but no better than many others here. Those are perfectly valid reasons to like her, but not to fall all over her.
People *crying *about a poster that joined a few weeks ago wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary? And it started long before she fake died, so that’s not even really my point. All that did was take it up a notch, but it was already way up there.
(Bolding mine)
Who escalated the situation? I never even saw anyone express any doubt towards her until NotOkay came along. Healthy scepticism is fine and dandy, but you guys are not being sceptic, you are outright calling her a troll and a liar. There’s a difference.
THIS makes sense. I had some (unarticulated) questions about the timeline of her threads and how the devotee thread appeared before the “Ask The…” thread and this post articulates my questions better than I could have. She was a rather idealized version of the most disabled quad one could conjur up. From the perspective of a devotee, she had it all: youth, looks, wealth, incapacitating disability and an attitude and perspective on life that made her extremely pleasant to be around.
And if the real Umkay is actually a devotee, then it would also explain the extremely high level of knowledge on display throughout these threads. Those in the DPW spectrum live the life of SCI in so many ways, many times they are more knowledgeable (in certain senses) than those who actually do have SCI. It’s scary.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I feel like Sarabellum nailed it with the bolded part. A devotee has created the perfect woman and fleshed her out and made her real to us. Because she is soooooo perfect: beautiful, smart, rich, fun, sexually confidant, career confidant, socially confidant, witty, popular, adventurous, beloved by all, etc, etc, etc. She’d be anyone’s dream woman- or Mary Sue.
I read some of her threads, I even told my husband about the 19 page “ask the” thread because I was amazed by it, and interested in the devotee angle. Then I told him when she “died” because it was so weird. Then she came back, and frankly I am pretty fascinated by this whole situation. It’s incredibly bizarre.
ETA: Sniped! Curses!
Well, it was already becoming weird before notokay’s post, but obviously, notokay’s post escalated the board’s awareness. Hence, here we are.
And, like I said, I only became aware of umkay maybe the day before notokay’s post.
But, right off the bat, like Nzinga, Seated, there was something I couldn’t quite pinpoint about the fishy nature of it all. Perhaps it was the overwhelming positive response that soured my reaction a little bit, but still, I’m skeptical for reasons I can’t exactly explain, other than the mounting suspicion pointed to by others in this thread.
This isn’t personal at all, so please don’t receive it that way. I can understand when one is already very emotionally invested in something like this. I actually hope she’s not a troll.
Looking back now, one thing that didn’t sit right with me was her descriptions of her former “loves”. When I had asked her if she had ever truly been in love, she responded back, “yes, twice”. She said that both times, he eventually left her because he just couldn’t see himself being with someone in a wheelchair.
That sounds like someone painting the picture of their experiences with most AB people as being that of non-accepting of their disability, even when in love. Someone who is painting the picture of devotees as somehow a better, or perhaps only option.
I can say, even if she is real, she has never been in love. Not really. Because if they we truly in love, a little thing like a wheelchair wouldn’t even fuckin’ register.