how to fall in love forever (or until you realize they genuinely love facebook)

From Cracked: The 6 Most Impressively Nerdy Marriage Proposals

For the record, I am not only uninterested in marrying anyone, ever, I don't even remember my last relationship, but should a random internet stranger do any of these, honest to God the sheer fanglee would possibly end with me surfacing a year later engaged in legally-defined monogamous cohabitation wondering if signing Seperis is legally binding and if I feel committed enough to ask what their actual RL name is and maybe give them mine (I assume we exchanged usernames during the vows?). I also assume I would at least be sane enough to ask for a google history of their most commonly used pseudonyms, a tumblr tag search, and which name they answer to in the prenup. I mean, how does one carry on a healthy marriage without being able to text and/or msg your significant other under their preferred username?

The last part worries me. A working arc reactor might make me forget to double check their usenet activities, which could end tragically for everyone involved. God. What if they were bronies? They might be bronies right now! Google would show that, right?

ETA: Fandom_Wank - Brony Convention Las Pegasus Unicon Beset By Strangely Predictable Or Even What What Might Call Inevitable Tragedy - keyword here: money.

Adding: Extremely informative breakdown of events in googledoc form here with a link to a breakdown of the finances. Uh, wow.

And also, a quote from JF comments that explains everything ever.

I just cannot even. Is there some secret fucking order of these people? People with weird employment histories who find gullible fandoms and fleece them mightily? - jkefka

Okay, why did no one realize this before? Of course there's an order; this is fandom. We have a community for everything.

Comments

[brownbetty]

Oh, man, that Brony thing.

I mean, I feel some sympathy, because it's easy to let enthusiasm substitute for capacity and get in over your head, but on the other hand...

I'm pretty sure at some point you should look at your spreadsheet, notice the order of magnitude of the monies involved, and hire someone who has experience to at least apply an abacus to the problem.

[seperis]

This is feeling more and more scammy than accident, the more I read. Especially considering the money still missing.

[ratcreature]

I'm kind of aghast. And I actually can't imagine anyone organizing something this large without accountants on the team. I've helped organize two conventions (not fannish ones but with other non-profits), and both had under five hundred people attending, and we still needed volunteers who were accountants professionally, not least to not run into tax issues (also both financed themselves partly through government grants, so the paperwork and documentation for that is a special kind of nightmare -- actually we had to pay back one grant partially because they weren't satisfied that we used it exactly as we had applied for it, though none of embezzled any funds or anything, it was just the first time that our group had gotten such money and we were inexperienced).

[alwayswondered]

I think failure to disclose bronyism is grounds for an internet annulment. At least I hope so.

[seperis]

Your words to the gods of the internet's ear.

[lillian13]

Heh. There's a Brony convention here in Austin, Brony Fan Fest. Competently run, no real drama I was aware of. Except they were expecting 300 or so people and something like 900+ showed up.

[ladyvyola]

Stampede!

[zee]

You had me at 'working arc reactor.'

[out_there]

Oh, wow. I'm a little disappointed and horrified at a scam of this magnitude, but then again, I work for a non-profit and had the same emotional reaction to discovering how much fraud happens in non-profit because the industry is a bit of an easy target for scammers (great ingredients for a scam: extreme greed or emotional connection. You either need a ponzi scheme that promises to pay off big, or a good emotional pull where people let enthusiasm and faith in a cause override common sense and a lack of acknowledging limited knowledge.)

On the ohter hand, I am incredibly proud of fandom for pulling together that document and spreadsheet. It's very professional and reasonable, logical enough that it might help in legal matters later (and, heh, I actually worked through that spreadsheet myself in Excel to be sure it was calculating correctly).

Mind you, I wouldn't hold my breath on the money ever reappearing. Whether it was a scam on purpose or simply bad management of funds, I doubt the cash will ever return.