March 16, 2009

• Episode 2: Awareness

  This is Episode 2 in a multi-part story of how I crossed paths with a Web celebrity. Episode 1 is here. I will be updating this story throughout the week with new episodes. It's a dark, depressing story, but I think it's time to share it in the hope of teaching others. You can read more of how I feel about each Episode in retrospect by perusing the comment section. Minor details may have been changed to protect the identities of the people involved.

  The object of my Web affections, who I'll call Kylie, had just posted a warning about a man named Fred. Kylie claimed that Fred had sexually harassed her and posted a link to his web site. However, Kylie had made the mistake of not moderating comments, and this paraphrased comment was posted:

  "Joe, I know this is you! I put your e-mail, joespoolhall@aol.com, into the site search and this site turned up under your e-mail! You're just mad because Fred kicked you off his site for being such an idiot. I can't believe you're trying something like this!"

  I nervously typed in the e-mail that the commenter had left, wishing desperately that I had misinterpreted the comment. It was true. Kylie was not a hot young Christian businesswoman. Instead, Kylie was the creation of a man who had few friends of his own. That was why Kylie had seemed so knowledgeable of sports and other guy topics. But it got worse.

  The man was OLDER than me, training to be a MINISTER, and was MARRIED. You would think that ONE of the three factors would have been enough for him to realize that pretending to be a woman was wrong. But I guess the lure of having many friends due to impersonating a hot woman was too much for him. I shall call him "Reverend Creepy", or RC for short.

  In fact, I dug deeper and found out that RC had also created a Kylie profile for Xanga, but no one had commented on his blogs here. This was before Xanga allowed lots of profile pics, and so his hot pics weren't of much use to him here in drawing in gullible males and females.

  To be honest, I wasn't that angry when I found all this out. Perhaps I was too stunned to be angry, or felt too stupid at being fooled. Also, I felt free, because the great dilemma was solved. I didn't have to wonder if I should try to fix Kylie, because Kylie did not exist! And I had escaped a very creepy situation, because I had never contacted Kylie. So I left the site alone, convinced that "Kylie" had been exposed.

  Still, there were several mysteries remaining. Was there a real Kylie whose profile RC hacked, or did RC invent the story and then add the pictures of some random hottie? And why did RC create such a profile? There was a Kylie post in which she called RC a friend and asked people to add him. Was the entire Kylie profile just a cry for help or friends? But I didn't care at the time--I was free! Story ends here, right?

  Episode 3, Anger, will be posted Wednesday or Thursday. You are free to guess what will happen next in the comments.

  • 1:00 pm
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