# POLL: Honestly, did you believe Umkay's story before she was outed? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 26, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375 "2012-06-26T18:46:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/121 "2012-06-27T13:59:14Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/122 "2012-06-27T14:00:08Z")
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 ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/123 "2012-06-27T14:31:58Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/124 "2012-06-27T14:47:59Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/125 "2012-06-27T15:04:35Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/126 "2012-06-27T15:04:54Z")
Believed in her almost up to the banning. But I redeemed myself with a hilarious post moments before the banning. _phew_ ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/127 "2012-06-27T15:06:49Z")
> [@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** ---
**Author:** ![Azeotrope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/0ea827/32.png) [@Azeotrope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Azeotrope)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/128 "2012-06-27T15:07:13Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/129 "2012-06-27T15:13:27Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Why did people stop trusting her? > What happened that resulted in her being banned? Here’s the [official announcement of her banning](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=656426); here’s the [ATMB thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=656423) about her banning. A good place to start, though, would be the top of [p.8 of the I Pit NotOkay](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=656188&page=8) 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. ---
**Author:** ![LaurenIpsum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@LaurenIpsum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LaurenIpsum)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/130 "2012-06-27T15:14:39Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Deegeea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Deegeea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deegeea)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/131 "2012-06-27T15:33:02Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Mauvaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mauvaise/32/11084_2.png) [@Mauvaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mauvaise)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/132 "2012-06-27T15:34:53Z")
I picked other because I was completely unaware of him/her/it until the death-notice thread. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/133 "2012-06-27T15:47:18Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/134 "2012-06-27T16:20:41Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/135 "2012-06-27T16:39:48Z")
Other: I never opened either of her threads. But I’ve found the fallout quite entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/136 "2012-06-27T16:48:53Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/137 "2012-06-27T16:51:27Z")
Unless I missed something yesterday, I _still_ don’t understand why people are so convinced she’s a troll. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/138 "2012-06-27T17:15:39Z")
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 #. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/139 "2012-06-27T17:16:20Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375/140 "2012-06-27T17:22:15Z")
> [@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.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15206460&postcount=724) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-honestly-did-you-believe-umkays-story-before-she-was-outed/626375.md?page=8)