DISQUS

odd time signatures: Internet Fakery Taken Up a Notch or Two

  • Gideon · 2 years ago
    Holy moly! We used to pull little pranks like that on friends back in the IRC glory days, but this...this is something else.

    I do agree with you, though, that perhaps what is missed in all of this is the loneliness of this girl - given the author's description of her loveless relationship with "Simon".
  • karoli · 2 years ago
    Hi Gideon!

    Yes, that is what Janna was able build upon --- Audrey's humanity and need to have someone who filled that void. I'm about to update this post with one from Liz Ditz where she lists a bunch of other similar scams I'd forgotten about.
  • Marie · 2 years ago
    I just read Josh Olson's entire article. And, oh, my God! One thing that occurred to me, and maybe someone somewhere already commented this, is that Janna gave up so easily because she already has another scam in development somewhere. The really creepy thing is Janna is sitting back somewhere reading all this. The question is, is she shamed, or is she getting off on it.
  • Marie · 2 years ago
    Okay, I thought about it more. Maybe she gave up so easily to avoid an ugly confrontation and possibly the police being called. She might have rationalized it that if the police got involved it could or would curtail future scams.

    In any event, I'd bet money she's going to do something similar again. If she's not already.
  • Gideon · 2 years ago
    Or perhaps we can hope that she's learned her lesson and won't do this anymore.
  • karoli · 2 years ago
    Gideon, Marie is right. Number one, she's loving all the attention. And when it fades, she'll be looking for the next person, because Josh Olson has it exactly right when he says she's just crazy from one side to the other.

    The only way that will change is if she gets help. Which she likely won't.

    I've seen the very same people come back to the SAME community and scam it all over again.

    One really sad case involved a similar story with a message board, where one day the person's "spouse" came on the board and announced they had died. Two days later they rose again as a "friend" of the dead spouse. It was amazing, and even though the group had its doubts, they accepted the "friend" as legit, until someone uncovered the truth through an email mismatch.

    In some ways, this kind of scam is worse than the Internet phishing scams and the like, because they actually create a relationship which they then go about destroying.

    It's all a big control game for them.