people can do weird shit. :) once, long time ago when my elder kid was very little, I read one Russian community about women and children. There was a woman, she told stories about herself: that she had fought cancer, and after that got two perfect kids, that she is a university professor and she has a perfect husband and she was giving advice left and right. And she also said that she does cross stitching and showed pics. :) And people recognized those pics as their own, because many girls may stitch the same kit, but no two frames are alike. So it turned out the whole story was totally fake. :) I don't know why someone will create a fake personality and maintain it for years, but some people seem to have nothing better to do

i dont understand, i knew of him, i read his stories, left comments, am friends with a liar and a thief?i didnt know that he died or... are you saying that he was never abused, in a coma or dead at all? i... dont understand why *is confused as hell right now* i never knew none of this until now.... thanks for bringing this to my attention

He got exposed years ago, actually so to see him (or more likely her, let's be honest) coming back in interesting. In fact, I based a character off of him in the fandom meta crackfic I wrote back in 2011! Played by Misha, of course lol

It not that odd. People on the internet looking for attention. Looks at those people on tumblr recently faking suicides-- they managed to get attention from Misha, Mark, and others who took it seriously.

So has all that tumblr kerfuffle been exposed as a fraud then? Were there no trolls targetting people?

I admit, I was inclined to believe that because I've encountered recently a real life troll who had a go at a friend of mine and who has caused problems in fandom in person at Asylum conventions. So these crazy nasty pieces of work do exist...

The mind boggles. The motivation for acting this way completely escapes me, let alone the time it must take to keep up the illusion on so many different fronts. I tell you something else I worry about. There seems to be an influx of fundraising sites or people appealing for money. Now, I don't want to sound hard hearted, but just handing over cash to a username with a sob story that i've no way of knowing is genuine? No. I'm sorry, but No. Maybe that makes me sound like a bitch, I don't know. Sad as it is I think people are far too naive and trusting online. A shared fandom, and a few exchanged comments doesnt mean we really know each other does it? Am I even making sense? Probably not! (No change there then!) Having said all this, there are some unquestionably kind and genuine people about. I just wish it was easier to spot the ones with ulteria motives.

This is not that uncommon behaviour mostly in girls/young women but occassionally in males with mental health issues like borderline personilty disorder.

It's a bit like Munchhausens/Munchausen's by proxy in that it serves a pathological need to elicit care, sympathy and connection with others. But unfortunatly ultimately it's never enough, because the person knows that none of that attention is directed to the 'real me' which just further amplifies the need.

Although the deceit can be very upsetting and hurtful to the victims, I think your approach is the right one - to think of the individual as a very sad, unhappy and lonley person.

Yeah, after I got poking around LJ (and seeing what other folks had to say about him), I realized I HAD heard of him before as this enormous fraud. The amount of energy he devotes to fabricating stuff indicates some serious dysfunction.

I'm super-skeptical of people on the internet. Before I buy anyone's sob story about anything, I research as much as I can and listen to my instincts about them.

Actually, I have a friend on-line who I met 15 years ago in a White Wolf vampire-themed rpg chat, and she faked being a 'he' for ages, to really sell the idea that her character was male. She was also trying to protect her real-life identity; back then, it wasn't nearly so accepted to live RPG chat stuff. I caught onto it early on and asked her point-blank, and she admitted it to me. Eventually, she admitted it to all the rp folks she actually cared about. We're still friends today, but she never tried to milk anyone for sympathy or attention or money. We had a mutual friend in this same circle who got taken for a lot of money (and hand-made gifts) by a guy claiming to be Italian and in love with her. We tracked his IP to Florida. SO not Italy. And there were other things too, but fact is, people do this crap to each other all the stinkin' time.

You're a good soul, Ash. He (or she) took advantage of a lot of good souls. Don't stop being kind-hearted! Just do a quick google if someone's life seems so fraught with misfortune, it's the stuff of soap operas. :)

I heard about this maybe a couple of years ago and I thought, hmmmm? Really?

But then I remembered that about 15 years ago I was a moderator on a pretty big social forum and 2 of the people on the forum, a younger boy and an older women were having an online romance, then when the younger boy went to meet this "women" it turned about he was a 30's man. So after investigating it as best I could, the IP addresses showed that neither were where they said they lived. I banned them because no one needs that drama.

The internet is awesome for being anonymous and you can make up whatever you want about yourself.

I didn't know that Mica was stealing stories and art. I read a couple of his stories and thought they were pretty good. I was sad when he got beaten up, etc. But then I saw the post about his "death" so yeah, people can be weird and dramatic, wanting to be interesting instead of interested.

Yeah, I think I heard something about him - there was a couple of others years back, one named Marie something (who when she got caught created another lj saying she was hacked to keep the drama going- turns out it was all fake fake fake).

Idk, I have too much on my own plate to pay too much attention.

I love and adore fandom/LJ community and had the pleasure of going to cons to meet rl fen. And as much as I love fen it still turns out, people are still people and just as batshit crazy as the next person! Judgment call via my own experience rooming with a few said crazies o.O

Egads, scary. The fact that this happens only occasionally means one needs to be careful, as a rule. A young woman got kicked out of Chicon last year for some misconstrued tweets. Creation apologized, but stuff like this DOES happen. Stalkers and emotionally troubled folks exist in the world.

But the internet does have a lot to answer for - I remember years ago reading an article that pointed out that in olden times, the village idiot was isolated and therefore usually no harm was done. But now they go on Twitter or Tumblr and say stupid things, and find people who agree with them - and boom! An explosion of idiocy.

THIS. And not only do they find like-minded people to hang with, they isolate themselves by tailoring their friends' list (or whatever they call it on various sites), and it gives them the impression they are a lot more prevalent and powerful than they really are, and that proceeds to confirm their crazy and spurs them on. :/

The fake suicide thing is awful. It's hard enough to get mental illness recognized, understood, and believed without having to wade through a crowd of kids messing around. Plus it takes anyone in a really vulnerable place that comes across it and exposes them to a whole bunch of emotional crap they just don't need to be dealing with. It's kind of like yelling 'fire'.

Ugh, my head hurts when I see such things... Yeah, it's weird, I totally agree. Also, not fair. I come to Internet to find friends and just for sharing my thoughts with each others. And when it turns out someone has been cheating... If one lies about one's identity, then how do I know whether this person's thoughts and views were true? And if they weren't, then what's the point in talking? Yeah, I get that one wants to keep anonymity, I do as well, I tend to be paranoical about it, actually. But anonymity is one thing, and fake personality quite another. Not to mention it has an awful side effect of spreading general distrust around. And plagiarism is a whole next level of dickiness. I'd feed plagiarists to sharks. *growls* Plagiarists don't just fake identity; they steal someone other's!