And I fell for it; hook, line and sinker.
Then again, I am not alone. The entire world fell victim to this "individuals" distorted mentality; Tom MacMaster, a US student studying in Scotland, allegedly blogging from Turkey.
And that, dear bloggers, is the REAL bloggers Dilemma. Separating fiction from reality - I am all for a good fictional story every now and then, but do not fool me into believing it is an excerpt of reality.
His blog has garnered a huge media attention, gathering as many as 2000+ followers, and countless anonymous commenters. The BBC reports (here) that it was all a sham.
(Truthfully, some of the entries did read like Syrian Soap-Opera. Why were we blind to this before?)
I never truly understood the mentality behind men posing as women and vice versa on the world wide web. I had my first rude awakening when playing an online game, Myth of Soma, whereby certain female characters on-screen turned out to be led by men. (Think "Gamer" starring Gerrard Butler).
I hereby redirect my previous post (here) that was unintentionally "inspired" by the shenanigans of Tom MacMaster toward the real bloggers, who blog under their real names, such as Ali Abdulemam, Mohammad Abdul-Kader al-Jassem, Hossein Derakhshan and countless others who discard the idea of a "secret identity" to add a touch of realism to their blogs and writings. MacMasters deluded writings represent a slap in the face to all those who have been imprisoned for voicing their opinion.
Blogging is a privilege, readers deserve to be treated with decency and respect. Pulling a shroud of inaccuracies over their eyes and masquerading it as the god-honest truth, well, that is just unacceptable. Movies have the decency of stating that "the following movie contains scenes of a fictional nature, no person was hurt during the filming of this movie" etc.
Blogs need Disclaimers too.
The greatest difficulty this day in age is separating the truth from fiction. I pride myself on being an online skeptic, there is nothing I do not Google, be it forwards or job offers, to get to the truth. Sometimes certain items fall through the cracks.
However, let it be known that some facts, more often than not, can be refuted and disputed. Take for example a recent email I received asking me to place ad-links into some of my content. I was overjoyed by the idea, until a dear friend informed me of the existence of an article from a fellow blogger claiming that this emailer was a hoax.
Well, I have the money to prove otherwise. So there is one case in which an extensive online search that garnered results turned out to be false.
How often does one receive email pleas from African Kings or deceased Kin who share your same last name? How about the Green Card Lottery?
This seemingly idiotic facade put on by a 40-year old is proof of one thing; we need to exercise greater caution in what we invest online, and I am not just talking money here. Emotional investments exist as well, where you believe in a cause so much to the point that you throw caution to the wind. Both emotional and monetary investments in false ideologies end up backfiring on their investors.
I sincerely hope that Mr. MacMaster stands before the opposite side of Karma, for making many a reader appear to be fools.
This is a crippling blow to LGBT rights activists, as you can see, anyone with an active imagination can parade around as a young lesbian in a country on the brink of Socio-Economic turmoil, and their words are instantly echoed in the media. Why? Because society has grown cautiously weary of the LGBT movement. You cannot say anything without first weighing the impact it may have, and the way in which it may be received.
Kobe Bryant was fined and side-lined for calling a referee a certain derogative term that was deemed ill-advised by the LGBT community. His words were deemed "homophobic slurs", and the last thing you want to do as a celebrity is upset the LGBT community. Tracy Morgan, the side-kick from "Cop Out", also came under heavy fire as a result of some hard-to-swallow personal opinions regarding the LGBT community.
We have stigmatised anything to do with LGBT, as everything has become criminalised, be it moral or judicial; Affirmative Action in the 21st Century.
Let us hope that MacMaster is not the first in a trend of people who take to minority online personas to get a point across to the world (if indeed there ever was a point to his tirade, as all it did was cause more harm than any good). MacMaster masqueraded as a Female-Sunni-Muslim-Half-Syrian-Half-American-Lesbian, how many of those exist around the world?
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