Death and Deception in Disabled Gaming
August 23, 2024 2:08 PM Subscribe
Susan Banks was a prominant advocate for games accessibility until her untimely death. Now, it appears she may never have existed.
An AbleGamers profile from 2018, and a subsequent announcement of her death, are testament to the amount of esteem with which she was regarded. What is the proper response in a community if it has been dooped not just once, but several times, especially over something so intimate as identity?
An AbleGamers profile from 2018, and a subsequent announcement of her death, are testament to the amount of esteem with which she was regarded. What is the proper response in a community if it has been dooped not just once, but several times, especially over something so intimate as identity?
What an apt question for this particular online community, with its Kaycee Nicole drama twenty-odd years ago, Scott Adam’s pretending to be not-Scott Adams a decade ago, and the account that posted inspiring, funny, and completely fictional stories about, for instance, meeting dead Beastie Boy Adam Yauch.
I was a little bummed I’d forgotten the username of that last example until a long-silent grudge-holding part of my mind muttered “Damnatio memoriae.”
posted by infinitewindow at 2:24 PM on August 23 [14 favorites]
I was a little bummed I’d forgotten the username of that last example until a long-silent grudge-holding part of my mind muttered “Damnatio memoriae.”
posted by infinitewindow at 2:24 PM on August 23 [14 favorites]
appeared to share the perspective of a “Deaf, Muslim, queer, disabled, gamer nerd” [...] she allegedly escaped oppression and emigrated from Turkey with her sister and established herself in Chicago [...] Her various jobs are said to have included being a professional model, an asset manager at a financial firm, and a professor of Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University, the leading university for Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals in the United States, all before the age of 30.
Look, I'm all for celebrating the vastness of the human experience, and the ability for people to exceed the expectations of others. But all this special snowflake detail reeks of a pathological liar, like a Mary Sue fanfic that leapt off the page to enter real life.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 2:37 PM on August 23 [28 favorites]
Look, I'm all for celebrating the vastness of the human experience, and the ability for people to exceed the expectations of others. But all this special snowflake detail reeks of a pathological liar, like a Mary Sue fanfic that leapt off the page to enter real life.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 2:37 PM on August 23 [28 favorites]
“Deaf, Muslim, queer, disabled, gamer nerd”
It's interesting how scammers these days seem not to settle on having just one marginalized identity. I've reached the point where if I encounter someone online introducing themselves with more than two to three adjectives implying marginalization, I figure in an extra margin of uncertainty in dealing with them (everyone gets some uncertainty). Especially if they then suddenly need GoFundMes for something medical.
posted by praemunire at 2:41 PM on August 23 [20 favorites]
It's interesting how scammers these days seem not to settle on having just one marginalized identity. I've reached the point where if I encounter someone online introducing themselves with more than two to three adjectives implying marginalization, I figure in an extra margin of uncertainty in dealing with them (everyone gets some uncertainty). Especially if they then suddenly need GoFundMes for something medical.
posted by praemunire at 2:41 PM on August 23 [20 favorites]
Reminded me strongly of the case of "Amina", discussed on Metafilter here, summarised on WIkipedia here.
I feel this is not just a scam, although for sure the stolen valour is used for gain and there is a scam element. There's some kind of urge from some white dudes to inhabit the persona of a marginalised person that goes beyond that.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:58 PM on August 23 [9 favorites]
I feel this is not just a scam, although for sure the stolen valour is used for gain and there is a scam element. There's some kind of urge from some white dudes to inhabit the persona of a marginalised person that goes beyond that.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:58 PM on August 23 [9 favorites]
Alensin, thank you for making this post.
Years-long fraud and exploitation, of an entire community no less, is reprehensible. I'm so sorry.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:00 PM on August 23 [2 favorites]
Years-long fraud and exploitation, of an entire community no less, is reprehensible. I'm so sorry.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:00 PM on August 23 [2 favorites]
Man, I know hindsight is 20/20, and caveating that I am not Deaf myself, but the page shared from the (now deleted) Medium account reads like fanfiction. That's not how a completely Deaf individual growing up with no spoken English proficiency (implied by the need to have a notebook to write down her words, not for others to write to her) whose first language is American Sign Language would write. It's just... not.
I was curious about Coty's specific focus on the Deaf community and found it strange the article didn't mention if he is Deaf or not. I searched a little and ended up coming across a few articles about them using presumably a deadname; I found that their pronouns are he/they (identifying as nonbinary, was not able to confirm if they consider themself a man) and that he became hard of hearing after an accident a number of years ago. Of course, there isn't evidence for that either, but "hard of hearing person pretending to be various congenitally Deaf individuals" is a lot easier of a position to bullshit from than some random person who doesn't have any connection to the Deaf community.
If all the other details were right, I don't think I would necessarily notice "hey, the history of this particular Deaf person doesn't seem to make sense" because I'm not in the habit of questioning people about that. But in retrospect, the crafting of a persona adjacent to but with a very experience different from their own is evident.
posted by brook horse at 3:17 PM on August 23 [5 favorites]
I was curious about Coty's specific focus on the Deaf community and found it strange the article didn't mention if he is Deaf or not. I searched a little and ended up coming across a few articles about them using presumably a deadname; I found that their pronouns are he/they (identifying as nonbinary, was not able to confirm if they consider themself a man) and that he became hard of hearing after an accident a number of years ago. Of course, there isn't evidence for that either, but "hard of hearing person pretending to be various congenitally Deaf individuals" is a lot easier of a position to bullshit from than some random person who doesn't have any connection to the Deaf community.
If all the other details were right, I don't think I would necessarily notice "hey, the history of this particular Deaf person doesn't seem to make sense" because I'm not in the habit of questioning people about that. But in retrospect, the crafting of a persona adjacent to but with a very experience different from their own is evident.
posted by brook horse at 3:17 PM on August 23 [5 favorites]
Gosh that was a journey. I'm not sure deep into this community but I know how tight a lot of the disability community is on Twitter/X and I can only imagine what this must have been like. Thanks for sharing this story. Good on Stoner and his team for writing it.
Am I reading this correctly that the basic allegation is that Coty Craven, who is a real person, basically made up a serious of partners all of whom had various intersectional identities, and none of whom actually existed? And yet there was a lot of positive social good (fundraising, accessibility improvements, awards/recognition) done in their names. And Craven has deleted a lot of their social media so it's even harder to connect the dots, and feels like an icky thing to even have to do. Which is... a lot.
posted by jessamyn at 3:18 PM on August 23 [5 favorites]
Am I reading this correctly that the basic allegation is that Coty Craven, who is a real person, basically made up a serious of partners all of whom had various intersectional identities, and none of whom actually existed? And yet there was a lot of positive social good (fundraising, accessibility improvements, awards/recognition) done in their names. And Craven has deleted a lot of their social media so it's even harder to connect the dots, and feels like an icky thing to even have to do. Which is... a lot.
posted by jessamyn at 3:18 PM on August 23 [5 favorites]
Each of Craven’s partners embedded themselves into varying marginalized communities, with each allegedly being Deaf, a person of color, queer, and having some form of major health episodes like cancer
It is a very common pattern. And for better and worse we likely have enough examples to train a machine to detect it.
This sort of deception has been a staple of the Internet since at least 1987. The scale has gotten larger, but the destruction of trust among the community remains the same.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:19 PM on August 23 [7 favorites]
It is a very common pattern. And for better and worse we likely have enough examples to train a machine to detect it.
This sort of deception has been a staple of the Internet since at least 1987. The scale has gotten larger, but the destruction of trust among the community remains the same.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:19 PM on August 23 [7 favorites]
I think I may have interacted peripherally with Coty on Twitter once or twice, the name is vaguely familiar. I for sure visited CIPT a few times over the years. I'm not really sure how to feel about the deception other than just baffled and kind of sad.
posted by Alensin at 3:20 PM on August 23 [5 favorites]
posted by Alensin at 3:20 PM on August 23 [5 favorites]
I'm pretty sure I have met this person (although not under the name Coty Cramer) at a convention, as we have several mutual acquaintances. They're also a legitimately good writer and were good at making connections in the gaming industry. I do not think this is a simple scam that was only done for money. There's clearly some... complicated identity stuff going on here which also seems to have been true with several of the other cases of fake people mentioned above. I suspect this started as an experiment in creating a fake twitter persona (that lots of people do) and then when the articles got applauded they didn't want to abandon the identity and kept it going until it turned into this web of lies.
This exact thing will probably happen in a few years in some other community, based on the history of the internet so far.
posted by JZig at 3:25 PM on August 23 [1 favorite]
This exact thing will probably happen in a few years in some other community, based on the history of the internet so far.
posted by JZig at 3:25 PM on August 23 [1 favorite]
Reminded me strongly of the case of "Amina", discussed on Metafilter here, summarised on WIkipedia here.
That was more than ten years ago? Wow.
posted by praemunire at 3:30 PM on August 23 [1 favorite]
That was more than ten years ago? Wow.
posted by praemunire at 3:30 PM on August 23 [1 favorite]
for better and worse we likely have enough examples to train a machine to detect it.
For worse, we likely have enough examples to train a machine to generate it.
posted by praemunire at 3:32 PM on August 23 [6 favorites]
For worse, we likely have enough examples to train a machine to generate it.
posted by praemunire at 3:32 PM on August 23 [6 favorites]
The more I look into this the more this seems like an extreme case of "my girlfriend, who lives in Canda" except the internet has now made it possible for that lie to be exponentially more impactful (both in terms of benefit to the liar, and in harm to communities).
posted by brook horse at 4:39 PM on August 23 [7 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 4:39 PM on August 23 [7 favorites]
Coty can pivot now and run seminars now on how to monetise your imaginary girlfriend.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:57 PM on August 23 [9 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:57 PM on August 23 [9 favorites]
"There's some kind of urge from some white dudes to inhabit the persona of a marginalised person that goes beyond that."
Not just dudes.
posted by davidmsc at 5:15 PM on August 23 [5 favorites]
Not just dudes.
posted by davidmsc at 5:15 PM on August 23 [5 favorites]
fewer dudes than non-dudes these days, I would venture (mostly just due to the kinds of circles in which this kind of behavior buys something)
posted by atoxyl at 5:29 PM on August 23
posted by atoxyl at 5:29 PM on August 23
This seems closer to lonelygirl15 than Dolezal.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:58 PM on August 23 [2 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 5:58 PM on August 23 [2 favorites]
and the account that posted inspiring, funny, and completely fictional stories about, for instance, meeting dead Beastie Boy Adam Yauch
holdkris99
posted by fluttering hellfire at 6:09 PM on August 23 [3 favorites]
holdkris99
posted by fluttering hellfire at 6:09 PM on August 23 [3 favorites]
But all this special snowflake detail reeks of a pathological liar, like a Mary Sue fanfic that leapt off the page to enter real life.
There was a tumblr user a few years back who presented themselves as a source of advice on living with HIV. Who claimed to be a HIV-positive non-binary bisexual Muslim Chinese-Pakistani sex trafficking survivor, living in India with their trans lesbian Catholic Somali-American wife, who was also a sex trafficking survivor.
You will not be surprised to learn that they were actually a white American college student.
posted by tavella at 6:11 PM on August 23 [23 favorites]
There was a tumblr user a few years back who presented themselves as a source of advice on living with HIV. Who claimed to be a HIV-positive non-binary bisexual Muslim Chinese-Pakistani sex trafficking survivor, living in India with their trans lesbian Catholic Somali-American wife, who was also a sex trafficking survivor.
You will not be surprised to learn that they were actually a white American college student.
posted by tavella at 6:11 PM on August 23 [23 favorites]
How could you leave out that this was at its heart Hamilton fandom drama?
posted by brook horse at 6:21 PM on August 23 [14 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 6:21 PM on August 23 [14 favorites]
There are so many red flags here, like Coty apparently having very similar tastes in imaginary women, but "had two legs amputated after dropping a Kitchen-Aid on one foot" is the biggest. Also, "Susan Banks" for a Muslim woman? Was he trying to thwart Google?
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:25 PM on August 23 [2 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:25 PM on August 23 [2 favorites]
“How ‘The Sound of Metal’ Gave Me the Space to Grieve“ by Courtney Craven—archived.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:27 PM on August 23 [2 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 6:27 PM on August 23 [2 favorites]
Craven claimed Banks had been hospitalized after dropping a KitchenAid mixer on her foot (...) Several hours later, her leg was allegedly amputated, and nearly 48 hours after the first operation, her other leg was amputated as well.
this is like. slapstick. i really feel for his imaginary girlfriends, they went through so much imaginary suffering.
its kind of sad that craven couldnt just do this activism himself? like he was already queer and hard of hearing and evidently willing to put a lot of energy into deaf activism but instead of doing that he made up a series of EVEN MORE queer and disabled cutouts to speak through. and now everything he touched is tainted by this betrayal of trust. idk its just kind of tragic. the internet is so weird
posted by _earwig_ at 6:47 PM on August 23 [7 favorites]
this is like. slapstick. i really feel for his imaginary girlfriends, they went through so much imaginary suffering.
its kind of sad that craven couldnt just do this activism himself? like he was already queer and hard of hearing and evidently willing to put a lot of energy into deaf activism but instead of doing that he made up a series of EVEN MORE queer and disabled cutouts to speak through. and now everything he touched is tainted by this betrayal of trust. idk its just kind of tragic. the internet is so weird
posted by _earwig_ at 6:47 PM on August 23 [7 favorites]
I will say I deleted what I had laid out on this because it felt too doxxy? But I went through multiple articles under their deadname and there are wildly different accounts from Craven themself of how they became hard of hearing and their most current public social media account (dated April of this year) makes zero mention of it despite actively advocating on LGBTQ+ topics and Palestine on that same account, so I'm actually not sure now what to think about their connection to the Deaf/HoH community.
posted by brook horse at 6:51 PM on August 23 [4 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 6:51 PM on August 23 [4 favorites]
Got msscribe flashbacks from this, but it also made me sad. The disabled gaming community didn't need this sort of sockpuppety drama.
posted by May Kasahara at 8:03 PM on August 23 [5 favorites]
posted by May Kasahara at 8:03 PM on August 23 [5 favorites]
“ Banks sometimes gets personal about other aspects of gaming as a Deaf Muslim woman. When reviewing Prey, a game where the protagonist’s reality is constantly in flux, she recounted her own struggles with schizophrenia. In a review of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, she praised its portrayal of hearing voices, but noted that the voices were rarely captioned.”
From PowerUp #77
So many boxes to check, so little time.
posted by Ideefixe at 8:55 PM on August 23 [1 favorite]
From PowerUp #77
So many boxes to check, so little time.
posted by Ideefixe at 8:55 PM on August 23 [1 favorite]
Also, a Turkish person would never mark their race as Arab, as in the second screen cap in the article.
I had drafted a comment on this FPP about being unable to trust photographs that basically said, "The ease of manipulating photos is offset by the ease of acquiring corroborating data, so it'll be okay!"... and then I read this.
posted by McBearclaw at 7:09 AM on August 24 [2 favorites]
I had drafted a comment on this FPP about being unable to trust photographs that basically said, "The ease of manipulating photos is offset by the ease of acquiring corroborating data, so it'll be okay!"... and then I read this.
posted by McBearclaw at 7:09 AM on August 24 [2 favorites]
There was a tumblr user a few years back who presented themselves as a source of advice on living with HIV. Who claimed to be a HIV-positive non-binary bisexual Muslim Chinese-Pakistani sex trafficking survivor, living in India with their trans lesbian Catholic Somali-American wife, who was also a sex trafficking survivor.
You will not be surprised to learn that they were actually a white American college student.
Strange Aeons did a medium-deep dive on them on YT. The frantic squirming that the actual person did when they were caught, in an attempt to avoid having to tell the full truth, was extraordinary.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:47 AM on August 24 [4 favorites]
You will not be surprised to learn that they were actually a white American college student.
Strange Aeons did a medium-deep dive on them on YT. The frantic squirming that the actual person did when they were caught, in an attempt to avoid having to tell the full truth, was extraordinary.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:47 AM on August 24 [4 favorites]
From the “earn passive money from the labor of others” perspective that’s historically popular with white people, it makes perfect sense to me that the adaptation “earn passive respect from the characteristics of others” continues to occur, too.
posted by Callisto Prime at 9:51 AM on August 24 [5 favorites]
posted by Callisto Prime at 9:51 AM on August 24 [5 favorites]
This was such a weird story, and the fact it ostensibly WAS helpful made it all the weirder.
That said, as soon as I saw "queer, disabled, deaf, muslim woman" I'm like. Come On, someone's a try hard.
I mean, ok, it's obvious that all these are possible, and intersectionality exists for a reason but my first "clue" was how hard it felt to try. As if the more labels a person slaps on the more they deserve being heard. (I know that's NOT how it works, and I don't think it should, everyone's perspective matters as it relates to their experience, but it's an intersection not additive, so the more oppressed you are the louder you get to be, etc... though people often seem to treat it like that).
Anyways, the other thing that was odd to me, but I realize it isn't necessarily impossible was her saying she was from Turkey and an "Arab". I then thought - well, ok it IS possible she's Arab.
(assuming google's snippet is correct, which post-AI, could very well be hallucinated, but I imagine it's round enough for this case):
Others (Circassians, Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Turkish Jews, etc.) 6–11%
So she could have been an Arab, but I guess maybe that's the "joke" she's a minority even in Turkey. Ha, clever
guy.
(That said Arab isn't genetic technically and here I am over my head anyways, so. I'll just let the past sort itself out like it has here).
Just a wild story, and just nice to see it actually helped somewhere instead of causing tons more harm as it easily could have if "Coty" wasn't aiming to do seemingly good things.
posted by symbioid at 10:09 AM on August 24
That said, as soon as I saw "queer, disabled, deaf, muslim woman" I'm like. Come On, someone's a try hard.
I mean, ok, it's obvious that all these are possible, and intersectionality exists for a reason but my first "clue" was how hard it felt to try. As if the more labels a person slaps on the more they deserve being heard. (I know that's NOT how it works, and I don't think it should, everyone's perspective matters as it relates to their experience, but it's an intersection not additive, so the more oppressed you are the louder you get to be, etc... though people often seem to treat it like that).
Anyways, the other thing that was odd to me, but I realize it isn't necessarily impossible was her saying she was from Turkey and an "Arab". I then thought - well, ok it IS possible she's Arab.
(assuming google's snippet is correct, which post-AI, could very well be hallucinated, but I imagine it's round enough for this case):
Others (Circassians, Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Turkish Jews, etc.) 6–11%
So she could have been an Arab, but I guess maybe that's the "joke" she's a minority even in Turkey. Ha, clever
guy.
(That said Arab isn't genetic technically and here I am over my head anyways, so. I'll just let the past sort itself out like it has here).
Just a wild story, and just nice to see it actually helped somewhere instead of causing tons more harm as it easily could have if "Coty" wasn't aiming to do seemingly good things.
posted by symbioid at 10:09 AM on August 24
I was a little bummed I’d forgotten the username of that last example
It is for understandable reasons etched into my grey matter; pretty much the first thing I did when I came across this article earlier was whisper "holdkrisssss!" spitefully to myself.
And it's shitty in its ramifications in that same similar way—the issue isn't so much the lying, which is just an indictment of the liar's lack of ethics, but rather the damage to trust within the community to whom, and about whom, and on behalf of whom they chose to lie. When holdkris faked his death it was a gutpunch to everyone in the MetaFilter community who had followed his stories in good faith and poured out grief and understanding to his "widow"; no matter how good-hearted and forgiving any person may have been after the bullshit was revealed, there was a collective clawing back of some of that community trust that had been extended, a hardening of some of the instinct toward shared vulnerability that I have always loved about this place.
To do that sort of thing in turn not just to friend-strangers in a general social space but to marginalized and disabled folks depending on community structures for support and visibility is just...several knife twists more. Undercutting not just the social trust of an online community but the potential efficacy and mutual support that community creates for one another goes past selfishness into something more like proactive harm, and that's deeply, deeply fucked up.
Humans are weird and have bad instincts and at a human level I can understand how these things happen, at least at a theoretical remove, so I don't need to imagine Coty as an intentional villain here, but the degree to which they kept deliberately repeating not just a lie but a cycle of that same kind of lie for years, at the expense of a whole community, is gutting.
posted by cortex at 9:04 AM on August 25 [12 favorites]
It is for understandable reasons etched into my grey matter; pretty much the first thing I did when I came across this article earlier was whisper "holdkrisssss!" spitefully to myself.
And it's shitty in its ramifications in that same similar way—the issue isn't so much the lying, which is just an indictment of the liar's lack of ethics, but rather the damage to trust within the community to whom, and about whom, and on behalf of whom they chose to lie. When holdkris faked his death it was a gutpunch to everyone in the MetaFilter community who had followed his stories in good faith and poured out grief and understanding to his "widow"; no matter how good-hearted and forgiving any person may have been after the bullshit was revealed, there was a collective clawing back of some of that community trust that had been extended, a hardening of some of the instinct toward shared vulnerability that I have always loved about this place.
To do that sort of thing in turn not just to friend-strangers in a general social space but to marginalized and disabled folks depending on community structures for support and visibility is just...several knife twists more. Undercutting not just the social trust of an online community but the potential efficacy and mutual support that community creates for one another goes past selfishness into something more like proactive harm, and that's deeply, deeply fucked up.
Humans are weird and have bad instincts and at a human level I can understand how these things happen, at least at a theoretical remove, so I don't need to imagine Coty as an intentional villain here, but the degree to which they kept deliberately repeating not just a lie but a cycle of that same kind of lie for years, at the expense of a whole community, is gutting.
posted by cortex at 9:04 AM on August 25 [12 favorites]
So I have an online theater company and we do play readings for playwrights and then discuss the play. Today's play featured three characters: (a) a teen girl Afghan refugee posing as a boy and her harrowing sea journey to England, (b) a shell-shocked veteran, and (c) a former nurse who seems like a nice lady, but she's actively involved in protesting the refugees who have moved to her town, and in her opinion, trashed it (also some people broke into her FIL's house). When the veteran finds out she's a protester, he's disgusted and they fight, and then the refugee washes up and the nurse can't help but help her.
The playwright said she hasn't been able to get it produced where she lives (UK area) because (a) the trend right now is "lived voices" and you're not allowed to write about something you haven't experienced and obviously she hasn't been on a sinking boat, and (b) she got called racist for having one PoC character "and the others are white, that's not nice for the PoC actress to have to deal with." To which she said, "I did not specify the races of the other two, just where they are from." She told me she's thinking of cutting the teen character entirely from the play so it can get produced and just have the other two deal with somebody (with no lines or character development) washing up. I thought that was really sad, even though all the characters are based on real life people she either knew or researched, that this play wouldn't be heard because it's coming out of someone who's not the demographic. Especially if it's FICTION.
I then thought of this situation and thought, "Coty didn't feel they could be listened to without trying on all these other fake identity tags." I don't approve of them doing it, but maybe that was the thinking behind doing it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:51 PM on August 25 [1 favorite]
The playwright said she hasn't been able to get it produced where she lives (UK area) because (a) the trend right now is "lived voices" and you're not allowed to write about something you haven't experienced and obviously she hasn't been on a sinking boat, and (b) she got called racist for having one PoC character "and the others are white, that's not nice for the PoC actress to have to deal with." To which she said, "I did not specify the races of the other two, just where they are from." She told me she's thinking of cutting the teen character entirely from the play so it can get produced and just have the other two deal with somebody (with no lines or character development) washing up. I thought that was really sad, even though all the characters are based on real life people she either knew or researched, that this play wouldn't be heard because it's coming out of someone who's not the demographic. Especially if it's FICTION.
I then thought of this situation and thought, "Coty didn't feel they could be listened to without trying on all these other fake identity tags." I don't approve of them doing it, but maybe that was the thinking behind doing it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:51 PM on August 25 [1 favorite]
This is really unfortunate, jenfullmoon. I hope the play can be produced and everyone can figure out how to deal. I feel like everyone is operating from the best of intensions but the self-righteousness bothers me.
posted by Alensin at 3:54 PM on August 25 [1 favorite]
posted by Alensin at 3:54 PM on August 25 [1 favorite]
Coty didn't feel they could be listened to without trying on all these other fake identity tags.
Isn't that the genesis of every fake author scandal? That someone wants to utilize another, more marginalized identity to get people to pay attention to their story? Whether it be drug addiction, a life of poverty and exploitation or an extraordinarily intersectional identity. It never makes in OK and is guaranteed to get whoever is doing it pilloried and raked over the coals when the truth comes out. It is also particularly pernicious because it is leveraging the suffering of others for clout.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:13 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]
Isn't that the genesis of every fake author scandal? That someone wants to utilize another, more marginalized identity to get people to pay attention to their story? Whether it be drug addiction, a life of poverty and exploitation or an extraordinarily intersectional identity. It never makes in OK and is guaranteed to get whoever is doing it pilloried and raked over the coals when the truth comes out. It is also particularly pernicious because it is leveraging the suffering of others for clout.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:13 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]
No, unfortunately. Scott Adams pretended to be someone who wasn't Scott Adams because he wanted there to be a defender of Scott Adams on Metafilter.
The woman who made up Kaycee Nicole just wanted attention and money for her made up story.
I'm not sure what holdkris was doing. There was another MeFite who was running like 6 sockpuppet accounts so that there would be voices to take his side in arguments.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:10 PM on August 26
The woman who made up Kaycee Nicole just wanted attention and money for her made up story.
I'm not sure what holdkris was doing. There was another MeFite who was running like 6 sockpuppet accounts so that there would be voices to take his side in arguments.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:10 PM on August 26
That may have been rinkjustice? Or the Givewell guys? We've been really fortunate here in that there's really not that much benefit to manipulating a community of older nerds, so people don't do it too often.
posted by jessamyn at 10:31 AM on August 27 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn at 10:31 AM on August 27 [1 favorite]
I couldn't remember more, than I remembered that although he was an American man, one of his fakes was a Scottish woman, so I went through the early Scotland meetup threads and found a mention of her. It was dhoyt alias highsignal, hall of robots, and jenleigh
He sort of apologized, and made it clear he was mostly just trolling to entertain himself, including sending many individual users trolling MeMails.
posted by hydropsyche at 2:40 PM on August 27 [2 favorites]
He sort of apologized, and made it clear he was mostly just trolling to entertain himself, including sending many individual users trolling MeMails.
posted by hydropsyche at 2:40 PM on August 27 [2 favorites]
« Older $700k and another small press round-up | What does the hand we're biting do, again? Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:17 PM on August 23 [2 favorites]