dotinthesky | LOLS and other Internet Disasters

...sometimes I have absolutely no idea what people are writing about on LJ and think that maybe I'm missing out on something that could possibly be important or informative or amusing...

How did I get so old and "out of it" so quickly?

If you spend loads of time here, it will start to make sense. ;)

(deleted comment)

When something as important and serious as death is treated with ambiguity and unclarity, one can only feel duped. By the way, when your username is googled, unsavoury images come up. Can you remove them? Thanks.

By the way, I log IP addresses, and I know this IP is coming from Brads work... therefore, you are using the same computer he/you used at work (ITT Hartford)

You know what I suggest? You take me off your friends list and forget about me. I don't have time for clowns like you.

wow... you need to chill. The perfect ending for that story was for the Brad character to commit suicide. Geesh... it just seemed the way to end the story.

Have a nice life,

bradlyb71

Told you so! ;)

Without my savy internet friends, where would I be? :)

I knew this was going to happen. Or maybe I didn't. But you are good to have cared, and you acted ver responsibly

So the story should end with the suicide note then huh? We didn't think leaving things hanging would be a good ending. We see though through the comments and "controversy" that it providing any follow up won't work for the story, causes issues.
For the record, not that it matters... the pictures you found are old ones of a coworker of ours. "Brad" is actually two of us that were in the same dorm in college last year, thought it would be fun and interesting writing, but it got old and we needed to end the story.
If we do it again we at least know how to change and work it.

If the journal was fake, you wouldn't have deleted your original comment to this post in a panic when you noticed you'd been busted... nor would you have deleted those photos. Why would you care if they were all part of a fiction? Your actions give you away.

Now bugger off.

That article was great.
I had a friend who faked a suicide, then lots of his friends started commenting on his last entry caring about them, not me, I couldnt really believe it. I cant believe if you are going to commint suicide you log in and tell your lj friends about it. Suicide is about not caring anymore, theres no need for publicity. But well, this boy never came back. But one day I saw a deleted comment on that last entry and the answer to that deleted one made by one of his friends: "its good to know you are ok". But the stupid delete his comments just to check how his friends cared about his fake death... I cant stand that.

So Brad faked it? Is that why the posts keep disappearing?

It was all a work of fiction ;)

Or that's what you would like us to believe now that you were busted.

Don’t feel tricked Ollie.
It is unspoken rule that a good amount of what is written in this realm should be taken with a pinch of salt, but how were you to know that it was fake suicide attempt? Now you will be that bit wiser to spotting pretenders, but the point is you shouldn’t have to be.
If it’s any consolation you were right to be concerned and contact (as any decent person would) the correct people involved and who could have helped. It could have been real and not somebody’s insalubrious RPG pastime, but we can’t wear our ‘sad/ sick wanker alert’ radar hat all the time, sometimes it needs to be dry-cleaned. ; P

Here is another one for the collection: two popular LJ personalities turn out to be written by one person sat behind the screen.
Not unusual maybe and I would feel amused by this, if only the conflicting sentiments of pity at not having better things to do and envy at having that amount of free time and stamina to write and keep both going didn’t get in the way.

The one good lesson I came away from this one is to only show consideration for those that I truly know. I'd love to be more caring about all the people on my flist, but it's a sad truth that many of them are people I don't know completely well, and who are potentially big arseholes (like this person.)

I'm happy he got found out though; it's very satisfying.

you seem to be a good person.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/fake_lj_deaths/188031.html

Sorry, protected post. Here it is:

Naturally red (arkady) wrote in fake_lj_deaths,
@ 2005-11-28 23:06:00

bradlyb71
This one seems pretty suspicious.

bradlyb71 posts what seems to be pretty much a goodbye/suicide note publically in his LJ. Concerned friends contact LJ Abuse, who in turn basically say "Sorry, not convinced it's a suicide note, but let s know if we're wrong, 'kay?"

Then today someone comments anonymously on the suicide note post to say they're a collegue of Brad and he's died over the weekend but won't give specifics.

He apparently has no RL friends on LJ, yet his collegues and partner appear on his LJ within hours of his death.

Now the "suicide note" is no longer public.

I wasn't on this guy's flist, but a mutual friend is, and this has all the hallmarks of a fake all over it.

Anyone else come across this one?

(Post a new comment)

stephdnichols
2005-11-28 11:10 pm UTC (link)
I didn;t see any comments on that site. I went but there was no comments.
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arkady
2005-11-28 11:12 pm UTC (link)
Someone appears to be locking the whole thing down; I'm wondering how long before the whole LJ gets deleted.
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)

twsted_beauty
2005-11-28 11:14 pm UTC (link)
I noticed that from the user info they posted one day ago and the only entry avaible is from the 22nd.
(Reply to this)(Parent)

disastrid
2005-11-28 11:17 pm UTC (link)
there's nothing that's after the 22nd, which means that if that entry is not the one in question it's been deleted. if it were made private you could still see it in the archives.
(Reply to this)(Thread)

arkady
2005-11-28 11:18 pm UTC (link)
A systematic detetion seems to be in progress at present, which screams "fake" even more.
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)

disastrid
2005-11-29 05:05 am UTC (link)
for shits and giggles and because i have a yahoo account that i never use, i added him as a buddy, curious to see if he ever came online, given that he's dead.

he or someone using his name came online and rejected my request for an add. HMMMM.
(Reply to this)(Parent)

shadowwolff
2005-11-28 11:25 pm UTC (link)
His info page makes it sound like it was all some sort of a metaphore for death ~ that his "dying" was really his journal being shut down.

He said that he got rid of all comments and has made his journal friends only.

I had thought I wanted to stop writing my journal and gave up on it. I gave it some more thought and decided to go ahead and continue on with it. I did want to move it though and make it friends only. I want to know who is reading my thoughts and listening to me. All the old entries are here, just minus the comments made. I have the comments saved elsewhere, and I appreciated them all. While some things have changed about me, my general outlook on myself and life really hasn't - so I left my old bio below since it still applies.
(Reply to this)(Thread)

pers
2005-11-29 07:00 am UTC (link)
I agree. It seems more like he's leaving LJ than committing suicide (minus the comment the OP mentioned but we can't see that so...).
(Reply to this)(Parent)

boley
2005-11-28 11:58 pm UTC (link)
http://www2.indystar.com/cgi-bin/obituaries/index.php

I gather hes from indy, and theres the obits for today...indy star lists by name and age, and it appears no one in his age range was in the paper today. Maybe something you could look for?
(Reply to this)

x_konstantine_x
2005-11-29 10:19 pm UTC (link)
Date updated: 2005-11-29 14:22:11, 7 hours ago

Wow.. to totally be the topic of conversation, how grande. We never figured it would grow into this hehehe.. how funny.
Some of the replies to comments were never posted.. interesting

I'm another one of bradlyb71's LJ "friends", and Ollie and I both expressed concern about Brad's wellbeing. The "suicide" post and the "post mortems" have been deleted.

Initially, I thought maybe some sort of ex might have hacked his LJ to write all of this. He seemed fairly sincere, but what can anyone discern from LJ posts?

We initially read a post from Brad's "co-worker" who told us that Brad "passed". I asked him to clarify, and he claimed that Brad had, in fact, died. Then his "partner" posted saying that Brad was already dead and buried. (Man, those Indiana funeral homes mean bidness!) He also said that someone made rude comments, which I assumed were my comments. Now that post has been deleted.

All things considered, people who pull this act should be forced to commit suicide slowly and painfully because they're pulling needed attention away from those who actually need help. (My mother and my sister both suicided, and drama queens like Brad get up my nose.)

And if you're reading this, Bradster, you can find sympathy in the dictionary. It's right between the words "shit" and "syphillis".

I'm with you. My real-life high-school boyfriend killed himself over 8 years ago and it annoys the hell out of me that people think that suicide is just a dramatic way to end their pathetic little fake lj persona. I am truly sorry for your loss.

If you could let the community know it's been resolved, that would be great. ;)

Hey Ollie,

I totally admire the way that you've behaved over this. You've shown sensitivity and compassion whereas as that person/thing/wannabe has just shown himself up to be a total dickhead.

I knew somebody in real life who was like this once. Fortunately they grew out of it and we can sort of be friends now. It did take a long time for me to be able to trust them though. Even now, I'm still not sure.

You're cool. What goes around comes around - karma, you know xxx

Yeah, I had that feeling. I'm sorry that's the case, but I guess I'm also sorry the person is not dead? Not that it matters, since it was apparently a "story" anyway. A pretty badly-written story, too.

how sad. crying wolf just makes everyone doubt. I wish it weren't like it, but there will always be pathetic people trying for attention in any way possible. people's capacity for deceit never ceases to amaze me. it's shit like this that makes me want to retreat from online participation. you just never know if you'll become a target...

I'm very close to shutting down this journal and keeping only a select few. I just don't know if it's worth it anymore dedicating time to reading so much on Livejournal; I'm better off with a good book.

I know how you feel...I don't read as many books as you do, but maybe I should? My roommate has been teasing me mercilessly about my internet usage. I should get off the internet some and get out of the house. Maybe we could help each other by writing paper letters.

wow. i'm sorry the douchebag made you fret. i'm just trying to catch up now, reading all this backasswards was confusing for a few moments. glad he's gone now though. karma will kick the bastard's ass.
*hugs you tight*

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