seperis | this is what we call homework avoidance

Randomly:

How did I not know there was Munchausen by Internet?

From the site:

Based on experience with two dozen cases of Munchausen by Internet, I have arrived at a list of clues to the detection of factititous Internet claims. The most important follow:

1. the posts consistently duplicate material in other posts, in books, or on health-related websites;
2. the characteristics of the supposed illness emerge as caricatures;
3. near-fatal bouts of illness alternate with miraculous recoveries;
4. claims are fantastic, contradicted by subsequent posts, or flatly disproved;
5. there are continual dramatic events in the person's life, especially when other group members have become the focus of attention;
6. there is feigned blitheness about crises (e.g., going into septic shock) that will predictably attract immediate attention;
7. others apparently posting on behalf of the individual (e.g., family members, friends) have identical patterns of writing.

I wonder if this will make it into the next DSM?

That reminds me of this (http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/970081.html).

Oh wow, I forgot about that one! I remember staring at it the first time around. Reminds me I need to check the fake lj suicide community when I can remember the name of it again where it debunks stuff. It's a kind of addictive fascination.

fake_lj_deaths, I believe.

I think Kaycee Nicole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaycee_Nicole) is the most well-known example, but yeah. It's been around. Then there was that lady who faked a secondary male persona for a number of years, and then when she got tired of keeping it up told everybody he'd been killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11. She even kept "his" journal going and responded to comments people left in his memory on the anniversaries. I think it was 2004 or '05 before she was outed.

Crap, what was her name...

Okay, I feel like I recognize that vaguely by reference, but not sure. Interesting.

Also reminds me of that blog/article entry about a woman who pretended to be a fireman and started an online relationship with a woman, but the woman's friends (and a writer!) outed the chick. Hmm. That was in the last year as well.

Wait. Is the same one? Involving--of all people--Harlan Ellison?

... were you in the Evilcrash RPG? Because I think she was. If I could remember her USERNAME, dammit.

I read the article you're thinking of last fall, separate case and yeah, Harlan was involved in the debunking. I don't know what fallout this fake-9/11 death had beyond LiveJournal/fandom.

No, but I swear it must have it either a snark community or someone's lj, because it sounds *really familiar*.

Teh second one--I still boggle on that. Just boggle. Forever. And a lot of that is that Harlan freaking Ellison got involved, because really. That is a deeply awesome plot twist.

The Wired article (http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2001/06/44245) cited in the Kaycee Nicole wiki articple is fascinating.

I wish I could summon some glee re: Harlan, but alas... it's Harlan, so I can't.

Also there's the whole point that, as some people pointed out when trashing that article (IIRC

legionseagle had a post that shredded the piece and the comments went further into the matter), the author posits himself as the hero swooping in to save his "friend" from herself (with Special Guest Star HARLAN FUCKING ELLISON) and denied her any agency in her own "rescue" (or chance to decide how she wanted the situation handled), any closure with the woman who'd been actually conducting the romance by sockpuppet, or any credit for being a "writer" instead of a "mildly witty blogger and writer groupie."

ETA because I really do know how to spell "writer."

edited at: Date: 2008-03-10 03:34 pm (UTC)

It's a great term, isn't it? I first heard it a few years back when there was one of these things in X-Files fandom (sounds a lot like the one above, except a little more mature in execution). One of the early doubters on that list was an actual newspaper reporter who was able to pretty quickly debunk the story. And then, added bonus, she pitched it to her editor and got a little feature article out of it....which is where I first heard Munchausen by Internet.

And hey isn't it great that the internet makes things so much easier these days? No more hanging around hospitals or inducing symptoms! just type, type, type away!

It certainly makes life-debilitating illnesses so much more convenient.

I--don't get that.

I really, really don't either.

I first heard it a few years back when there was one of these things in X-Files fandom

How long ago? Because this past weekend a group of us were trying to remember the name of one particular nutbar in XF fandom back in the late 1990s. She was in the hospital, frequently in a coma and only coming out to write really dreadful fanfic in notebooks, which was then transcribed by her brother, who also kept everyone updated on her coma status.

I keep wanting to say her name was something St. something....

I knew there was Munchausen by Internet! I'm way more familiar with Munchausen by Crazy Person, though.

I saw a really good post once on the top ten signs that someone is lying on the internet, but it's friends-locked now.

*collapses laughing*

Ooh, damn, I wish I could see that one. I bet it's interesting.

You know, we could probably come up with one on our own! Constant drama involving obscure illnesses with jumbled symptoms and dramatic accidents with no lasting effects and persecution by everybody, plus sexual relationships with celebrities, astral plane husbands, glitter pens for people in comas, etc.

*grins* I can ask her to unlock it if you'd like.

It does ring a few bells every now and again...

Ooh, yes, if you have a chance. I'd love to read it again, plus be able to link people to it.

Asked! We shall see if she's around; shall let you know.

Cool, thanks!

Fascinating & crazy. Here's a pretty famous one for you: Anthony Godby Johnson. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Godby_Johnson)

Oh, you make me happy! *clicks to read*

Yeah, I wrote a post about this when I read The Night Listener. Crazy crazy stuff.

Did you catch any of the svmaria (http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/How_Do_You_Solve_A_Problem_Like_SVMaria%3F) thing? Related and kind of fascinating.

*smiles* Funnily, Jenn and I were the first two commenters saying something smelled fishy in Denmark.

Oh, hey, I think that was before I'd heard of you guys. My bad.

Wasn't she the one who had some horrible illness and the only thing that would make her feel better was for us to send her cds and lip gloss or something like that? I thought of that as soon as I saw the words 'Munchhausen's by Intenet.'

I actually don't think she cared so much about the CDs or lipgloss or anything - that was all just...there. She wanted the attention from fandom, so she faked getting hit by a car, having a miscarriage, being in surgery for hours while her "boyfriend" got on the internets and told her friends what they could do in order to make the poor girl get over losing her baby. (As in, write stories about pregnant men, YAY! Send lip gloss and things with butterflies YAY!)

Some kind of Münchhausen's by internet crossed with hysterical pregnancy. Good times.

I remember it fondly. The blinking, the amazement, the leetle bunnies and butterflies and lip gloss. Yes.

no she is not "wasnt".
she still "is", as in very, very much alive and with us in fandom.
i have settled down to the fact, that she will be with us for the rest of my fannish life with clex.

That entry also links to the EPIC SV SOCKPUPPET WANK! Awesome. I think 28 socks is the current record.

You know, I'm so familiar with Munchausen by Proxy that I forget the root is ... just plain Munchausen's. Munchausen by Sockpuppet Proxy? I knew a chick who always gave her roleplaying characters multiple diseases and disorders, then threw huge, flouncing tantrums if her character wasn't the center of all attention, at all times, being pitied and babied by the other characters.

I'm not sure what was more disturbing. Her, or the number of people who obliged, over and over again.

Bat. Shit.

Wow. That's--wow. Okay, I have to remember that. Sockpuppet Proxy. Because it's *true*.

I think fandom is particularly frequently hit by this, because we want to be kind and loving and inclusive because we all got picked last for teams as kids. And let's face it: we're fangirls. we love drama. So we're more like to be easy marks for seriously disturbed people. Especially since unlike in RL social circles, online friends are less likely to talk to one another about it, which means the same person can hit multiple targets in the same venues before people catch wise.

Yep. And true. And on the internet, it's so easy to do that.

I feel oddly thankful for my own near-total lack of sympathy when this sort of thing crops up. I mean, friends can certainly ask me for help when life is stomping them in the gutter, but anyone looking for pity has long since learned to move on to richer sources of it.

you have totally enabled _my_ homework avoidance as well, because wow, this post and the comments are amazing! The sometimes-weird emotional dynamics are one of the reasons I don't get terribly involved in fan communities and such - never thought of this kind of behavior as a parallel to Munchausen's IRL, but makes so much sense.

Oh, you know not how lucky you are to have avoided encounters with the syndrome in your online fannish life up to this point. If I had a nickel for every rare debilitating disease or persecuting step-parent to be triumphed over that I've been hit with on message boards...

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That's why he goes bad, you know -- all the good people hit him on the head or try to shoot him and constantly mistrust him, while there's this vast cohort of minions saying, We wouldn't hurt you, Lex, and we'll give you power and greatness and oh so much sex...
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Beth: god, why do i have so many beads?
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