This doesn’t make sense. It’s not like these people were poised to drop a buck in the Salvation Army pot and suddenly realized “no, wait, Karyn needs this more!” and stuffed it back in their pocket.
People gave her money that they would have otherwise kept in their wallets and spent on something else. How is that callous?
Now THESE I could see spending that much money on!
http://www.peterfox.com/7969QV.html
Then I’d go and have them dyed so that they would look like the shoes in the movie, as seen here:
At the point that it is painfully obvious that the person is more than capable of helping them-f****-selves!!!**
Are you honestly trying to tell me that you believe this girl really needed help? That she isn’t just unforgivably lazy?
Aw, poor baby.
So you feel that no one has a right to profit from loaning money? May I suggest then, that you never make use of a credit card. Either that or that you paddle your way over to the Cuban socialist paradise?
Yeah, and? Again, poor wittle baby. Boo-hoo.
And you are qualified as the final arbiter because of what, again? All compassion is is sympathy for another’s suffering and the wish to relieve it.
That is a ridiculous charge and you know it. To continue to insinuate that this woman was in any way dishonest is dishonest on your part, and weakens your arguments every time you do it.
Of course not. So?
Yet another dishonest charge on your part. Please cite where she ever once said that she “didn’t feel she should even have to pay a lot of interest”.
It was! Jesus, you make it sound like she was drowning puppies.
Again, don’t think she ever did.
Oh sure I get it. I just don’t think you do.
I didn’t get the impression she was lazy in the least. Ebay is a total time-sucking pain in the ass, I know from long experience, and putting up a webpage and keeping it updated gives me hives myself. Plus, we have no idea what she was doing in addition to this. Laziness never enters the picture, except in your assumptions.
Hail Ants, there’s a difference between feeling sorry for someone - which I don’t in this case, anyway - and feeling absolute hatred and animosity for them, as you apparently do.
You ranted about her options regarding credit cards, and I just showed you that might not be the case after all. You can pooh-pooh that all you want, but you can’t on the one hand scream that she should have paid it off over a period of several years and then dismiss the possibility that that wasn’t an option.
Seriously. Why are you so upset? You’re so blinded by rage, you’re typing in red!
Did you… Did you give her money? :eek:
Ahh, one question about the money she has received from the kindness and gulliblity of strangers:
**Is she responsible for the taxes on it? **
God, I hope so.
Well, I didn’t think she needed help enough to give her any money. But I do think her situation was shitty, regardless of the fact that it was preventable, and the only way she would have likely gotten out of it would have been to declare bankruptcy. I don’t think she had any right to expect the help she got. She was lucky that people noticed her page, and many people felt like spending a buck or two on her. That’s great – sometimes people get lucky.
Instead of railing against how unfair it is that she got lucky instead of someone you feel to be more deserving, why don’t you go do something nice for someone you feel truly is deserving?
The nice thing about Internet begging is that it really couldn’t be easier to avoid. Until they get pop-up ads anyway…
She kinda reminds me of the guy in the second picture on this page.
http://www.lxrdesign.com/FUNNIES.htm
The people who gave to her knew what they were getting into. Fuck you if you don’t like it. If you somehow wound up ina similar position I very much doubt more than a handful would have the sheer ingenuity to even think this up in the first place.
She would have made the money back in a month if she would have just taken off her clothes like the usual money-hungry internet chick.
Poor spending habits, or chronic, compulsive living far beyond their means buying things that no one needs like Prada and Kate Spade? Or, in perhaps a more real world example, running up massive credit card debt with frequent meals out, rounds at the bar and late night pizza deliveries?
And did they get themselves into $20k worth of trouble while making in excess of $50k a year – a salary which isn’t chicken feed but certainly not enough to swath oneself in high-end froufrou designerwear.
Moreover, did they brazenly ask you to just give them money with no return expected just because you’re a nice person and they knew that they could take advantage of your generosity, or did they tell you about their problem hoping that you’d help them find a solution? Did they even try to make some noises about trying to pay you back one day, if not financially then at least through whatever good turns they could extend to you in kind?
You know, I don’t begrudge anyone a $500 purse. I’ve recently dropped nearly $400 on a bag but, frankly, I’ve got it to spend. It didn’t go on a credit card – well, it did, but because I bought it online. When that bill arrives at the end of the month, it’ll be paid in full. I carry no credit card debt. I’m not leveraging my future against purses. That’s what made Karyn capricious and silly – if you want to play in the “if you have to ask you can’t afford it” league, then you need to be sure that you’ve got the cash to back up your stash. She didn’t, never did, and then begged her way out of her hole.
So she sold stuff on eBay. So what? So she didn’t force anyone to send money to her. So what? That doesn’t mean that she’s not a craven, lazy, spoiled, selfish, dishonorable, woman of limited integrity and severely compromised decency.
And I say that because I’ve seen what happens when people of honor and moral fiber find themselves in heavy debt. People who are decent don’t just move to a smaller apartment, sell off their unnecessary baubles and then brazenly beg for free, no-return handouts, even when they have a network of people at their disposal who might be inclined to help them the way that Manhattan helped friends who were in a pinch.
That’s not to say that they won’t take help if it’s offered, but that wouldn’t be the bulk of their efforts toward alleviating their situation. They would take whatever job they can find, like the MBAs squeezing coffee at Starbucks and the MFA actor/singer/dancers who wait tables with such frequency that it’s a stereotype in NYC and LA that your waiter is just waiting for his break. They might take a second job of some kind, working 8-4:45 at one and 5-9 at the other. Sometimes people have been known to even take on a third job like delivering newspapers or something that strictly weekends, or some kind of extracurricular thing like selling Avon or Tupperware to get the ends all that much closer to meeting and the looming bills paid off. They take out consolidation loans. They move in with their parents. They get set up with a credit counseling service. That’s what decent people do – they fight like hell to pull themselves up out of the hole they’re in, whether they dug it themselves or circumstance threw them in.
Karyn however, kept her laptop, minidisc player and and instead of spending her time trying to earn a bit more money to get herself out of hock, sat around, created a poorly marked up website and sent stupid e-mails to strangers who wrote to her.
That’s an excellent question. Before Karyn’s woes started, she was making well over $100,000 a year working for King World entertainment on the show “Curtis Court” – one of those People’s Court/Judge Judy knockoffs. (How this is possible elude mes totally, given her less than stellar grasp of basic English language skills.) When she lost that job (when the show was cancelled) the job that she found afterward paid “less than half” of what she’d been earning at King World. But that means, if she was making over $100k she was still likely to be making somewhere around $50k/year. Then she lost that job and started doing something “freelance.” I do believe that her freelance gig fell through mid-summer; what she’s been doing since I can’t tell you.
But what seems to have sparked Karyn’s fiscal difficulties was her failure to appropriately adjust her spending when her income took a substantial dive. Not only was she still buying needlessly, she’s clearly also living a single entertainment-industry gal’s lifestyle to this day – going out, hanging in bars and nightclubs, (quote from the site: “Tonight I decided to meet some of my friends at a local corner pub for some drinks. Because I’m on a budget, I opted to drink tap beer.”) buying cups of coffee at a deli (until she scammed some for free) renting movies (not even good ones, I mean, Pootie Tang? And really, I wonder if Karyn ever heard of the library, where you can get much better movies for freaking free?) and never once deviating from her completely self-centered and vapid ways, just modifying them ever so slightly to keep up the appearance of her supposed newly-found financial sobriety. She’s even crossed the line into decidedly unethnical behaviour which she’s justified by her new need to save cash – stealing from her roommate (salad dressing, but it was still his, not hers) making long-distance calls on someone else’s business phone line, going out drinking on a friend’s business expense account and returning clothing to stores after it had been worn.
Callow, shallow, selfish and insipid. “We went to a French restaurant. I don’t have any money, so I had to order from the appetizer menu.” “I hate looking bloated. So I buy things that are low-sodium.” "I do not like to sunbathe because I do not want to get wrinkles. You have to plan early for these types of things. " (What a grip she has on the basics. Plan early for your skin, screw the money.) “I like to write. [ Ed: I don’t necessarily do it well, but I like to do it. ] I enjoy working with people. I’m creative AND detail-oriented. [ Ed: Not so detail-oriented, however, that I remembered to set a background color for the content portion of every page of my website! ] And look at it this way: If you hire me, maybe you’ll get to see my purdy face…” [ Ed: Self-centered? Me? Not at all! ] “I’m afraid of tap water because of the whole anthrax and chemical warfare thing.” “I’ve been getting my hair colored since I was in grade school.”
My favorite: “I’m not sure if you picked this up from ths website or anything… but I’m not the type of girl who is used to roaches and mice. But since moving to Brooklyn, I’ve have both. I figure that’s what I have to put up with to compensate for the cheaper rent.”
Anywhere you live in an apartment situation, including mega-pricey Manhattan high rises, you can have vermin problems. The difference is that her current landlord isn’t as judicious as he ought to be about extermination. That’s not a Brooklyn thing, that’s a cheap landlord thing. What a spoiled little whiner!
She operates on the skewed economics ideals of someone who still hasn’t faced up to reality – when she blew $2 on cheap dollar store cosmetics she didn’t need instead of $14 on Macy’s cosmetics that she didn’t need, she didn’t count it as a $2 loss, it’s a $12 savings. When she gets something for free that she doesn’t need and didn’t specifically seek out (Quicken software, Chinese Laundry shoes) or even chooses not to apply for yet another credit card she calls that a savings too. Arthur Anderson would’ve snapped this girl up in a trice – she’s clearly good at selectively creative math! And when she maims a t-shirt she considers it “making clothes.” And she’s not ashamed to say that she owns all of Britney Spears’ CDs. Hmm, most 20-somethings I know go straight to the CD rack when they need cash, but Karyn couldn’t even clear the drek out of her collection to pay off her 20k+ debt?
I’d love to meet Karyn’s parents, who left their daughter completely unequipped for real life and continue to support her irresponsibility.
It’s not the same as giving a homeless person money, not by a long shot. You know why? Because a homeless person, so long as he is homeless and unassisted has about a one in a million shot of getting off the street and out of his situation. Karyn clearly has plenty of free time and some semblence of marketable skill and she could have done something on her own to change her situation. She chose to look for handouts because she could, not because her options were limited to little else.
Opal and Guin, you know I love you guys, but I think your personal judgments are misplaced in this case.
We all are extravagant. In some way, we are. Why do we live in nice furnished houses, when others live in hovels? Aren’t we being frivolous and extravagant? Why do we have anything other than 3 meals, a pair of shoes, a cot and a pot to piss in? Anything more than that could be (in someone’s eyes) frivolous and unneccesary.
I don’t have a big income, and Lord knows, I can be a fool with money sometimes. But I never have appreciated other people butting in and deciding what I should be able to own and buy. We are all different, we have different sensibilites and priorities. We judge people by our OWN standards, which might not be appropriate for them.
For instance, I have a “killer” (in my own mind) Macintosh computer setup (including a flat-panel monitor and lots of extras). Macintoshes, as I am constantly reminded by my PC-owning friends, are more expensive. I have been scolded for “wasting” my money on this Mac, when PCs (and “regular” monitors) are so much cheaper. Yet some of the people who chastize me for “wasting” money on my Mac have far newer cars than I do. My car is 14 years old. I guess I could decide that anyone who doesn’t keep their car until its wheels fall off is “wasting” money and is frivolous and shallow. And we could go back and forth, judging each other and being big pains in the ass about our respective buying choices. And wouldn’t it be SO annoying?
(Yes, yes, I know that this woman is different because she asked other people to help bail her out, but she also sold some of her more “extravagant” purchases. Also, it is probably safe to say that the people who sent her money had similar spending sensibilities, or they would have never helped her out in the first place. Are they not entitled to their own personal sensibilities?)
As far as this woman goes, she sounds like a flibberyjibbet, and as I said before, “shameless”. But also resourceful. She made her website (which, I might add, doesn’t have to be expensive to maintain) and she had an “angle”. She provided “entertainment” (of a sort) for her supporters. They thought her website and her premise were worth supporting for a few bucks. They must have thought that they got their money’s worth.
People piss money away all the time. Surely you know this, so why are you getting so worked up about it? Do you want me to rail on anyone who spends money on porn? Or alcohol? Or big juicy steaks? Because if I wanted to, I could get all high-and-mighty about that and all holier-than-thou, and be a complete and utter pain in the ass about it, since I think all of these things are a terrible waste of money. But I won’t do that, because it’s really none of my business, and I cannot bestir myself to care all that much. So, you’ll pardon me if I can’t understand why some of you are getting all worked up about what some silly woman is doing, even though she is not hurting you or anyone else in any obvious way.
Like I said, she was shameless, and she seems like a ninny, but I just don’t understand the bitterness I read here. What has she done to YOU? Has she taken away anything from YOU? Do not all human beings have the right to give money to whoever they want? If they want to give to a ninny, it’s their right, and they are not hurting YOU.
You can think she’s irresponsible and a ninny—that’s understandable. But this absolute furious anger is misplaced, IMO.
Suffering? What suffering? Where did she suffer?
I must have missed that part, too.
Jodi nailed it. You can tell she nailed it because her post was ignored in favor of insisting people who disapprove of Karyn’s antics are jealous.
I don’t think the furious anger is misplaced, yosemitebabe. I think the whole debacle says something truly awful about our society.
-fh
Do you think it is appropriate to look at someone else’s shoes, and decide that they are a variety of negative things because of it? Or the age of their car? Or the brand of computer they use? There’s more to this current discussion than a story about a silly woman who asked a bunch of other people to bail her out.
Do I think she is silly and irresponsible? Sure. Do I think she deserves this sort of hatred? No. Disapproval I can understand. Lack of respect, I can understand. But there’s more than that going on here. And yes, I do believe it is misplaced.
There’s the “Well, I can’t afford that sort of thing.” attitude. To which I ask, “So what? Who asked you?” There’s the “Well, I wouldn’t spend my money on that.” attitude. And I ask, “So what? What’s it to YOU, anyway? How is it hurting YOU?” I don’t understand why you CARE so much about what other people buy. And I’m not just talking about this silly karyn woman, either.
It has been addressed on this thread, so I’ll do a semi-tangent/hijack and rant: What is it with people who are so concerned about how other people spend their money, or what they think is important enough to buy? What’s with this bullshit about how much someone else spends on shoes, or deciding that you need to mention how many shoes you have, and how much you paid for them? And I hasten to add, I am not talking just about some silly git who buys too many goodies and then hopes that other people will bail her out of her debt. I’m talking about alice_in_wonderland’s $500 shoes, and the fact that some people make assumptions about her, based on her shoes. And that other people say, “Well, why would someone want to pay so much for this? I’d buy this other thing instead.” Who gives a shit what you’d buy? I’d buy something completely different, myself. So, what do you think about that? Do you want to argue all day about what’s the most appropriate thing to buy? Don’t you think it’s rather petty and small to discuss how other people spend their money? Do you like it when people do it to YOU?
And you know what else? Someone else’s expensive shoes have NOTHING to do with any of you. NOTHING. And why do some of you need to mention what a hard time you’ve had of it, and how poor you are? That has NOTHING to do with how much someone else spends on their shoes, unless they are expecting YOU to pay for them. Which, in Alice_in_wonderland’s case, she surely is not, so why pass judgment? And in this silly woman karyn’s case, well, she asked people to help, but YOU never gave her a red cent, so why do you care so much? And don’t kid yourself, some of you DO care, far too much.
I’m sorry, but I’ve experienced this in real life, and I apologize if I am misjudging some of you (I am sure I am) but some of your attitudes here are all too familiar. The judging of someone else for their $500 shoes. The bitching about how someone else gave yet someone else money, as if it was a personal assault against YOU.
I’ve been reamed out by friends because sometimes I am a soft touch and give possible deadbeats small amounts of money. And I don’t get this. Tell me that I am foolish, tell me I am silly, tell me that I shouldn’t do that, but WHY do some people get so bent out of shape that they actually act as if I did something terrible to them? I didn’t. IT WAS NOT ABOUT THEM. Furthermore, it’s MY money, and I will spend it as I see fit.
I see a similar attitude here on this thread. Not from all of you, but from some of you. And pardon me, but based on my personal observations, I just ain’t buying this whole “moral outrage” bullshit. Something else is in play here. I am convinced.
100% in agreement. The way some people are reacting to this you’d swear the woman dipped their pockets. There was no deception or coercion on her behalf. She basically said oopps I fucked up and want a easy way out, anyone want to help? Some people did.
It seems to me that people want to feel better about themselves by lashing this woman out of it.
Maybe it’s medium of a message board or maybe there’s a lot of judgmental angry fuckers on this board, I’m looking at you Hail stop the red shit will ya Ants. I remember a thread about littering were some idiots were calling for the torture of the offenders.
People should save their rage for someone who actually deserves it.
She did.
I don’t see rage here. I see scorn and distaste for a person undeserving of respect.
And yes, the red letters ARE a little annoying. But I got his point that those dollars that went to her would have been better spent going to charity, or to a bum on the street, or cut up for confetti.
And I don’t give a shit what a person buys, as long as they can pay the bill.
So you don’t see a statement about being happy if the cunt get beaten up as rage then?
BTW, I certainly don’t hate her.
I just dont agree with the notion that I’m supposed to find what she did clever.
and here lies the probable difference between you and me I don’t give a shit even if they can’t pay the bill.
If it leads to me paying more in charges because of non-payment* then I give a shit but somebody being fiscally idiotic is fuck all to do with me. Other people pissing their money away on “undeserving” cases is fuck all to do with me aswell.
I believe that people should take responsibility for their own actions. I believe people should not enter into or remain in situations where they know - or suspect - they will not meet their obligations.
If, for whatever reason, they find themselves unable to meet their obligations, I believe people should seek to solve the problem themselves. I have no problem with people accepting charity. I have no problem with people contributing charitably. I would expect that once these obligations are met that the person learns from the experience and plans more carefully in future.
I do not believe that this woman made every effort to solve the problem herself. I also suspect that she has not learned much from the experience. That’s my only problem with her.