YOU ARE WHAT YOU TWEET

My husband and I just had the conversation where he got to tell me "I told you so". 
 

By my very nature I am a sceptical person.  So when I started using twitter, I took it slowly. I followed people I knew, knew of or I was interested in.  And it wasn’t long until I was on my way. 

 

Phil was dubious.  “What are you doing, meeting dudes on there?”  And I guess, if he starting talking or tweeting to random people on the internet, I  too would be a bit put out.  But it has never been about that.  Not for me anyway.  I talk to lots of people about lots of things.  And I’d like to think I’ve made some very strong and real connections since mid last year when I started “social networking”.  I’m not in it for the networking side, just the social bit.  Oh and the fact I am a bit of a news junkie, I find that the news travels to Twitter way quicker than TV or radio a lot of the time. 

 

I’m not looking for new best friends.  I’ve already got mine and they could never be replaced. 

It’s kind of hard to know though, when people are just showing you a facade on the net.  I mean, there are endless avenues to secure fake photos, personas and lives and basically turn themselves into anybody they would like to be. 
 

A year ago, I didn’t even really know what a blog was.  I was introduced by an acquaintance. She told me I should check out hers and gave me the web address.   The first thing I noted was that it was kind of like an online journal of her life.  I was intrigued.   So much of her life was on there.  I mean I knew her, she was also my neighbour and whilst I wouldn't say we hung out, I knew a fair bit about her.   Her blog displayed lots of crafty things she made.  She is very talented and absolutely gifted at holding kids parties.  But then again, if I did nothing all day, I reckon I could whip up a pretty outstanding Lego Man party myself.  It wasn’t long until she started to rant.  About stuff that I could see she was clearly being hypocritical about.   She made out she was the worlds biggest earth mother and dutiful wife, whilst in reality, she was good at keeping her husband firmly planted under her thumb and borrowing tools and gear off her neighbours and then hastily turning around and talking smack about them.    At one point, she called her husband home from work one day to clean her sons arse.  True story.

In short, her on-line and real life personas, just did not match up.  It was easy to make herself into something she wasn't.  What struck me though was that in the end, she was only deluding herself.
 

 

So, having said that do I change my mind on subjects?  Yes.  Do I say stuff in one breath and then maybe contradict myself in the next?  I don’t intend to but maybe I do?  When you are trying to entertain and be funny, sometimes situations are made to look more entertaining than they actually were. Let’s face it, me saying I stood in line with a tantrumming toddler whilst someone took too long at the ATM is not as funny as the way I blog about it.  But all in all, I’ve stayed true to who I am and what our family represent which is basically organised chaos. 
 

For instance I could not have made up the last year I have been through.    I just couldn’t have.  Cancer, broken bones, surgery, breast cancer scares, teeth pulled, tampon painting. Could I put all of that out there just for the fun of it?  Well I couldn’t.  You have to have a good memory to make it as a good lier.  And my mind is like a freaking sieve.
 

OK, so what this really is about is my last 48 hours.

 

During that time, it has come to light, someone I follow on Twitter, someone I have actually met in real life (only 1 of 2 I have actually done this with) turned out to be a total scammer and a fraud.

 

She led me, and a lot of other people to believe a lot of things that are simply just not true.  Basically, she sucked a lot of people into believing she was incredibly sick with cancer.  She made up fake people online that she used to con money from unsuspecting, good hearted people.

 

I should have followed my gut instinct.  That something was off.  That and the fact that she was incredibly rude to the majority of the retail assistants she spoke with that day.  But hey, she was meant to have cancer.  You can't call bullshit on someone with cancer over a "gut feeling". 

 

Where the lies start and end, at this point in time, are undefinable.  It was elaborate.  It was started at least over a year ago and a lot of good, smart and trusting people were sucked in.  The sad thing is, at the end of the day, if she really was sick, we all would have embraced her.  Probably even helped her out financially eventually should she have needed it.   But now, well now, she’s fucked herself.  And she’s tarnished a lot of what I thought was cool about this whole “community”, which is really sad, because I reckon 99% of the people I know, follow and speak with, are really fun, smart, and genuine people.

 

I think this may very well be, the modern day scam.  And I think I’ve had my very first taste of the evil side of the net.