Blog Fraud

So it turns out that Wizbang is reporting an unconfirmed allegation that the Hot Abercrombie Chick is no chick at all. This doesn’t really bother me at all one way or the other, but it seems to be a major affront to the “Blogiverse” — now first, I’ve mentioned it before, the reason I love blogs is that they’re quicker than mainstream media, they’re often times more accurate (and less spun), they’re fact-checked to hell and back (by other bloggers), and there are enough of them from enough different people that you can get whatever you want, however you want it.

There is a segment, however, that “lives” here in blogland. I don’t know who these folks are, precisely, nor do I want to attempt to guess, but they live here because (among other reasons) they don’t function well in society… that is to say that there are things about them that make them much more “attractive” (and I don’t mean strictly based on looks) here online where they can create their own image. These types of people like will almost certainly be offended by ruses like this for a host of reasons. The main one that comes to mind is that certain male bloggers really got a serious hard-on for the persona created by the Hot Abercrombie Chick, and reveled in the thought of a hot, young, intelligent blogger. This is not to say, of course, that her posts were without merit — quite to the contrary, I’m a regular reader and find them very interesting… and she gets some major debates going in her comments. The issue, though, is that these big male bloggers linked her disproportionately from other similarly talented bloggers who weren’t female or were less attractive. It reeked of “Hey hot girl! Look at me!” No harm done with that, of course, as everyone should be able to link to whomever they want for whatever reason they want… nevertheless, these people will be upset if this ends up being true because they’ll look back at their behavior and be embarrassed (even if they don’t say so). People mask embarrassment with anger, shock, and outrage — often times pointing fingers away from themselves to try to cover-up their feelings on the issue. So you can expect that to happen IF this does pan out… which I really don’t think it will.

On that issue, Say Anything, HAC’s future host, has an interesting post on the matter which points out her bio page and MSN profile. He notes that things seem to be consistent, which is usually not the case when things are made up.


To bring this back out of blogdom and make it of more general interest to everyday readers around here, let me point out the HUGE difference between this hoax (presuming it’s true) and the Kaycee Nicole hoax which predates my involvement on the ‘net. Go ahead and read that page, I’ll wait … no, really … go read it.

Back? Ok, good. Now, class, what’s the PRIMARY DIFFERENCE (assuming that Amanda is a fake)? The big difference is that nobody (as far as I know) has any reason to have been emotionally involved or invested in HAC… those that are, have done so (again, as far as I know) with no cause and at their own peril. This is the internet, folks… not the local college bar. The point, here, is that you can never be too careful. The other point is that… hey yo… it’s JUST THE INTERNET.

Of course, if you want to live your life here, these are the inherent risks. That having been said, I’ll point out again that a) I don’t think HAC is a fake. b) I don’t care one way or the other, really.

Oh, and if you’re one of those who is having a strong revulsion to the “news”, I suggest you take a long look at the reasons why… I suspect, if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll probably realize you’re just as mad at yourself as you are anyone else (or should be).