OK, now I've seen it all....

[Supreme Cmdr]

Death of a Cyber Person

Trust me, its not what you think.

[Epsilon 5]

I don't believe it!

that guy is a jerk, a moron and all the stuff alike!

[Blades]

It's not that hard to believe as it goes. I used to spend far more time than was healthy in various IRC chat rooms, and have come accross this sort of reprehensible behaviour a couple of times. Two that stand out was a real sad geek who made up a female alter-ego and had a relationship with her. For a good while, most of the regular crew were taken in, but after some time, a few of us got suspiscious. We investigated some more, and eventually discovered the truth. Boy, we pissed on him for that one.

The most recent one happened a while ago with a guy who used to come on and pretend to be a woman. He used to flirt with the guys, flirt with the gals, be quite a talkative and cheery person, but there was always somthing funny about 'her'. Some time later, a couple of pictures of her was released. One was a soft light photo that was passable, but the other looked very wrong indeed. This second photo not only made her butt ugly, but displayed a few tell tell signs of being a little too 'manly'. Turns out, this guy was into drag, and posed in this particular photo in his get up. Even though it was a distance shot, after some photoshop investigation, we concluded that the 'dude' had himself a big assed adams apple that 'she' really shouldnt have.

It gets worse.

A lot of people we're really friendly with 'it' by this point, myself included to acertain extent. And no, I was never 'that' friendly with 'it'. Way too old for my tatstes.

Anyway, this person had developed an elaborate history for 'itself', including a fiance that was a helicopter pilot who worked out on rigs quite a lot, as well as a son who also used to come into chat from time to time.

Sadly for 'it', some of us who were more outspoken (Not me I hasten to add - even though I dont agree with this sort of thing, I know that some people need these fantasy lives to delevope relationships with other people and Im not one to judge) started making accusations.

What clinched it for me was when I discovered that a chat person that had claimed to have met this person in the real world confessed to his girlfriend of the time (Someone I *ahem* was introduced to previously) that it had all been made up to stop people questioning the validity of these photos.

Eventually, 'it' must have got tired of this, or perhaps knew that the charade was coming to and end.

'It' supposedly got very depressed by the hurtful things that some of those people were saying, and took an overdose one night.

The devestated boyfriend managed to navigate himself onto the IRC server and ICQ and send people on 'its' contact list the message that 'it' had killed itself.

Word travelled fast, and the less insightful people were taken in by this latest twist. What followed was lots of emails, heart felt words of kindness etc that you would expect from friends.

A lot of us, however, didnt believe it. We had many reasons, too many to mention here, but suffice to say, we needed to investigate further.

The details of the death we got from this boyfriend (Aka persona no.3) we're contradictory in the least. Things such as hospital details, phone numbers etc didnt match up with every report.

Eventually, a good friend of mine that was also a friend of 'its' phoned up the devestated boyfriend to talk to him about it. Well, there was no further doubt left when I found out that the devestated boyfriend persona was hitting on her. I mean, a bereved man doesnt talk dirty to a friend of his dead fiances, now does he?

Point is, the majority of people who use chat rooms are not freaks like this. There are some people out there (And Im sure many people here can relate to it) that use these chat rooms to boost their self confidence, or make relationships with people they normally couldnt do in the real world. There are some, however, as the above example and the thread the SC pointed out that use it to hurt and manipulate people in the worst possible way. They are the twisted ones.

Message of the day :

Parents, keep your kids out of chat rooms.

[Guest]

sick sad world.

[Emmett.hendrick]

Its sad to think things like that go on. I have posted in a few places but my most freqent posts go here, Its nice to share view points and ideas with others and good to get advice when needed. but thats just a little weird.