In the interest of moving this thread over, now that we'll truly be discussing a new topic, here's an excerpt from the comment I posted to the previous thread:

Personally -- I'm not bearing Debbie any grudge, but then I wasn't involved. I have said a prayer for Debbie and the three people she loved -- I hope you would do the same -- though there was no Kaycee, she was the amalgamation of four people in extreme pain and suffering. (Debbie included.) Here's one of my favorites, that I learned from Jack Kornfield:

May they be filled with loving-kindness
May they be well
May they be peaceful, and at ease
May they be happy.
posted by tweebiscuit at 12:13 PM PST on May 20


Can someone with legal training help me understand the process we need to go through now to have this woman prosecuted?
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:19 PM PST on May 20


Two more things I'd like to say:

1: For the love of god, no I told you so's, please. Most of the investigation was in entirely the wrong direction in any case. The only real piece of evidence was that no one, ever, had met either Debbie or Kaycee -- but people seemed pretty eager to Photoshop bio pics in search of hidden team mascots. Let's just forget that part of this thread, ok?

2: For metrocake, and the others calling for Debbie to come forward (see the previous thread): Debbie doesn't owe us anything. At least, not those of us who weren't close with KayCee and herself -- and metrocake, it doesn't seem like you are. Though Debbie chose to place herself in a public forum, she has no obligation to that forum, whatsoever -- only to her friends. If Debbie's going to say anything more on the subject, it will be in private, I'm sure -- and that's how it should be.
posted by tweebiscuit at 12:20 PM PST on May 20


The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
posted by revbrian at 12:21 PM PST on May 20


Prosecuted for what? I can go make a web page and say I have a garage full of terminally ill elves. Lying and fiction aren't illegal. Fraud requires that the perpetrator lied for the purposed of parting people and their money/property.
posted by bonzo at 12:23 PM PST on May 20


y6y6y6 -- Were you a friend of KayCee/Debbie's? If you are, then you're justified in being angry, I think. If you're not -- well, I don't really feel you have a right to be as offended as you are by this.

In case anybody hasn't seen it yet (it involved following a few links from BWG's page), Debbie's final post is here.
posted by tweebiscuit at 12:29 PM PST on May 20


Fraud requires that the perpetrator lied for the purposed of parting people and their money/property.

and what about the ones who spoke with "kaycee" online and had her contact information and sent care packages before her death, and flowers and cards after?

i don't know how i feel right now. i'm hurt and angry and confused and doubtful. the story that "debbie" is telling us is even harder to believe that the original one.

i think it's time that i go outside and spend some time with the people i love, the people i can touch, the people whose eyes i can look into and see the truth.
posted by phooey at 12:32 PM PST on May 20


So, it's wrong to be deeply offended that an untold number of people spent several days mourning and dealing with emotional hell because they'd been tricked into believing that a girl who never existed died from a long and terrible terminal illness?
posted by gsh at 12:33 PM PST on May 20


Prosecuted on what charge? It's not illegal to write fiction and claim it's true. If it were, the entire Democratic National Committee would be in Supermax for their 2000 party platform. (hee hee hee!)

I don't really bear Debbie any ill will either (as long as it doesn't eventually come out that she is somehow fictional herself, or that somewhere, somehow, financial gain was involved). I don't know why she chose to do this, but it seems to have been rooted in some honest attempt to spread vague touchy-feely uplifting words around, or give cancer patients hope, or something along those lines. But when it got to the point of "Kaycee" having phone conversations, IM sessions and emails with others, that crossed the line into pure fraud. I can only guess that perhaps Debbie had a psychological need to connect and share in the receipt of the well-wishing herself ... that perhaps my theory about "munchausen-by-email-proxy" is actually a correct diagnosis. In which case Debbie has some psychological problems. Nothing serious, but worth getting a therapist to talk it out.

And no, no I told you sos, except to those so hell-bent on stopping us from uncovering the facts in the first place because they had personally invested so much in the Kaycee story emotionally and couldn't handle the possibility that it was all made up.
posted by aaron at 12:34 PM PST on May 20


I feel that people were violated, and it's foolish to think that violation can only come through monetary means; people have feelings, and more important they have love. Love is based on trust, and it doesn't matter that they've told only a bit of a lie, or they went in with the best intentions, people's trusts were taken off. The harm being that moment when you realize you'd been taken in, and all your time and love has been stolen. The harm being that next time people will not bother or care, be it in the real world or online. These people should make long and hard apologies instead of placing the blame on an imaginary person. That's my 2 cents on Kaycee.
posted by tiaka at 12:34 PM PST on May 20


"I don't really feel you have a right....."

My opinion on this topic is very different. I've been used, lied to, and victimized to my very core. Yes, it was due to my own gullibility. I don't see how that mitigates anything.
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:35 PM PST on May 20


FWIW, a great "don't say I told you so" comment from the older thread.
posted by mathowie at 12:37 PM PST on May 20


and what about the ones who spoke with "kaycee" online and had her contact information and sent care packages before her death, and flowers and cards after?

Well, she claims that all such deliveries were "passed on to the appropriate person." You might indeed have a case there, if Debbie is unwilling to ante up the names of the actual people whose stories she appropriated, and/or if those people do not agree they got lots of goodies.

Sidenote: Passing off an amalgam of other people as one actual human being is what cost Janet Cooke her 1981 Pulitzer Prize. And those in the prior thread questioning the ability of a major newspaper like the NYT of getting duped should note that Cooke worked for the Washington Post.
posted by aaron at 12:39 PM PST on May 20


Some people sent money to that post office box, after one of 'Debbie's' emails was circulated, in which she talked about how hard it was to be out of work while she stayed at Kaycee's side in the hospital. I got that email back in August of 2000 - forwarded to me by a webfriend with a big heart, who had sent them a little money to help them out.

Perhaps BWG wasn't the one soliciting money on her behalf, but someone else was - it was a very touching email about how skipping your morning latte for a week and sending that money would be such a great help. Did you send her money? Presents? Good will? Care and concern? Uplifting emails? Cheerful instant messages?

What kind of sick individual accepts all of that, and does not confess until they are outed?


I always thought the Kaycee blog was a rip off of this one, which is a true story.
posted by kristin at 12:40 PM PST on May 20


So the next question to ask is this:

Where did the "real" Kaycee (if she ever actually had a web page or online presence of any kind) end and Debbie begin?

Was the college club stuff Debbie or KC? Were the phone calls to KC or Debbie? If BWG talked to both KC and Debbie on the phone, did they sound different, and if so who were they?

and probably the most important question:

Will we ever know "the truth?"
posted by mathowie at 12:41 PM PST on May 20


somewhere, somehow, financial gain was involved

what about emotionial loss or gain? what's the worth of that?
posted by sugarfish at 12:43 PM PST on May 20


To me, the explanation by Debbie (or "Debbie"?) on her blog seems like a good way to short-circuit any full, detailed explanation.

"She's had enough, she's confessed, leave her alone." That kind of thing. I'm sort of impressed that people are still asking questions.
posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 12:46 PM PST on May 20


Did anybody to do with this whole mess actually die on Monday?
posted by normy at 12:46 PM PST on May 20


Sapphireblue, I am actually more inclined to trust. I've been online for a long time and the vast majority of people I'm in contact with are trustworthy. However, I have had a few encounters with people that have been negative. All that has done is teach me what to look out for, and given me an intuitive sense of when something isn't right. This Kaycee business, once I looked at the facts, didn't seem quite right, and, in the end, it wasn't.

I'm glad people were touched by Kaycee's story. They should be. You can call it rank sentimentality if you like, but it shows that people have a capacity to sympathize and to care. That should be a vital part of our lives.
posted by tranquileye at 12:47 PM PST on May 20


emotional, even.

and as a side note, how much do i love the internet, hoaxes and tricksters and spam or not? so many people are sitting here, refreshing and refreshing the comment pages, slamming google (i wonder if "kaycee" is a top search over there?) and generally searching for the truth.

viva the web, baby! ten years ago we'd have had to wait for the information to be delivered to us. now we can find it ourselves, or see it almost the instant it's posted.
posted by sugarfish at 12:50 PM PST on May 20


I'm not calling for prosecution.

However, there is such a thing as "confidentiality." I am asking the following questions:

"How did Debbie come by this information?" -- How is it that she had such seemingly intimate minute-to-minute information about the three separate conditions of three separate people?

And, more importantly,

"Did the families know this information was being posted on the Internet?"

If they did not, that's a problem. If Debbie was real and was writing about real people who didn't know all of this was going on, then depending on how she *got* the information, that could be a problem.

**** HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION: I AM THEORIZING ***
Suppose Debbie was an oncology nurse -- thus, seeing different people with different types of cancer -- and got inspired to write about them on the 'net. She's writing details about everything, from interactions with their families to mineral levels and seizures. And suppose this was all done without the families' knowledge.

That, my friends, is a serious breach of patient confidentiality. There's a great deal of difference between "write what you know" in a fictional sense and inserting details about specific people's lives.

*** end of hypothetical situation ***

The main reason why I was calling for Debbie to come forth is, honestly, to prove that she's not another construct. And to explain a little futher *why* she did such a thing; why, if she was going to write about cancer patients' lives, did she purport it to be one single person rather than telling it straight and calling it "tales of inspiration from cancer patients" or somesuch. Fine, not the harrowing tale of a ninteen-year-old fighting cancer, but still just as powerful -- perhaps even more so; how three different people fought this battle.

I'm not grabbing a torch and leading a witch hunt. I just want to know...well...*why.* I'm feeling pretty hurt and duped and, yes, pretty damned *stupid,* and now I'd like a clearer picture.
posted by metrocake at 12:53 PM PST on May 20


The point has been made before, but the fact that this hoax was outed is reason to have hope! It is when frauds go undiscovered that we have reason to fear.
posted by ericost at 12:54 PM PST on May 20


And now how exactly is anyone supposed to believe a word this "Debbie" says? What about the College Club Kaycee? What about all these people who emailed and who received emails from a person signed "Kaycee"

Do many of us email well-wishing strangers under the guise of 3 of our friends combined?

Debbie responded to people using a personality named Kaycee. People who were empowered, who were moved, people who may have had cancer themselves who were looking for a bond, and she has made all of that an incredible fraud each time she responded to them and signed a name that was not hers to use.

We were told that Kaycee's "mother" logged onto her College Club account to respond to her email the days of/and following her death.

Now Debbie posts that her intentions were *good*?

What would have been a good idea "Debbie" would have been to give these three people you claim the story was created from, and give them their own platform. Make them a In Memory of Webiste. Tell their stories. It is deeply disturbing to find out a person people cared about and loved was created out of 3 or more people. You have made a friggin Frankenstein. Chosen the parts you wanted out of ill people and created one packaged perky blonde with bottomless optimism. While Debbie walked down the up and downs road. One day Kacyee is in remission, one day she sick and so it goes on and on, as she weaves a tapestry of stories into one digital person.

And now, oh yes, we *believe* you Debbie. You are the soul of integrity.
posted by justagirl at 12:56 PM PST on May 20


".....once I looked at the facts, didn't seem quite right...."

I don't like the idea that now I always have to run this sort of thing through a filter.

Someone will tell me that they are struggling, suffering, on deaths door, fighting the good fight....... They will reach out a hand.....

And I will have to say, "Really? Can you give me some proof?"
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:56 PM PST on May 20


normy, if somebody didn't die on Monday, my question is then, what made Debbie/"Debbie" choose to end the fictional Kaycee's life? When she says that she was an amalgam of three people's lives, predominantly one girl, did this girl actually die? And if so, she was weaving bits from the other two stories in there as she chose? How do you conflate three different diseases into one story?
posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 1:01 PM PST on May 20


FWIW, a great "don't say I told you so" comment from the older thread.

Since you linked it here, I'll respond to it here; the other thread is so big now that it's taking forever for the page to load.

SapphireBlue wrote:
aaron: "Okay then. The blog was a fraud. Thank you."

the very worst thing about all of this is that people who are cynical by nature are going to take all this as validation of their suspicious natures---and people who are inclined to trust and to love are going to think twice before extending those kindnesses to strangers again.

Those who are cynical by nature, such as myself, receive literally dozens to hundreds of such validations every day. We don't need a big blog scandal to validate our beliefs. (Not to inject politics into this, but at its heart, this is the main difference between conservatives and liberals. Liberals believe in the inherent goodness of people, and that humanity can eventually achieve a level of something close to perfection with the right combination of laws and regulations to make sure everything is spread around in the right amounts to benefit everybody. Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that people are always going to be selfish on a number of levels, looking out for number one, no matter how hard we try. And not only will all the laws, regulations and social engineering in the world not change that, they'll simply provide more ways for the selfish to take more for themselves at the expense of the less fortunate it was supposed to go to (for example, the huge amounts of fraud scumbags manage to skim from just about every government program).

For those who are inclined to trust, I can only say that even as a card-carrying cynic myself, I have not lost all faith in trust and love towards strangers. I have merely learned that I should not bestow unlimited trust and love towards complete strangers who hide so far behind the screen that it looks extremely suspicious. And that's just common sense that we really all ought to practice in our daily lives. All it means is that when presented with extreme cases such as this one, where one is never ever presented with the slightest shred of non-circumstantial evidence that the person on the other end is real, you have the right to consider the possibility that something funky might be going on. And let's face it, such an extreme case almost never happens. Following such common sense rules shouldn't affect your day-to-day relationships with new online friends at all.

but the immediate future is going to bring a whole *lot* of ugliness from people who think that trust and love are things to be scorned, and who think that those of us who genuinely grieved for "Kaycee" are saps and fools for having done so.

I dunno. Even I don't believe this. As I said in the previous paragraph, none of this means trust and love themselves are to be scorned, nor that those that did fall for the Kaycee story are to be scorned. There really wasn't that much in her story to make people actively start to question the whole thing until they way that she "died" was so abnormal that it made lots of people start to question it all at the same time. The only thing to be scorned here are those who were so wound up in their grieving that they actively tried to stop others from investigating because they personally couldn't handle the possibility that they'd been had.

and a bigger shame that there are people small enough to get that kind of cruel and petty glee out of watching the fallout happen.

Again, any glee is obtained only by watching those who angrily and self-righteously attacked the rest of us for even attempting to investigate in the first place. The fallout itself to me is merely fascinating. I have no emotional investment in it, other than the satisfaction anyone doing any sort of detective work gets upon cracking the case.
posted by aaron at 1:03 PM PST on May 20


And those in the prior thread questioning the ability of
a major newspaper like the NYT of getting duped should note that Cooke worked for the
Washington

True. A good lesson to learn is that while news papers try to get things correct, they make mistakes on a daily basis. So many that they have a section for the ones they eventually catch. Wasn't it Carl Sagan who said that when trying to uncover the truth, "authoritive sources" are not valid evidence by themselves?

I'm sorry for all those who are now feeling a second round grief and anger over a story that may or may not have some grain of truth to it. But when dealing with the web, a critical mind is not a liability. Whatever the real truth is, we know this wasn't a large scale attempt to defraud the readers of money. But it could have been. If you truely benefited in some way from reading the blog then this doesn't change that. But always atleast keep an open mind to the possibility that people on the web are probably not as they present themselves.
posted by bonzo at 1:03 PM PST on May 20


I forgive Debbie. As I hope you'll all forgive me.

Her name was not Kaycee and she was not my daughter, but I loved her as if she had been. And I grieve her loss. as my wife and I "adopt" a lot of my children's friends. I can certainly relate.

A message hope hope was sent. A message that changed our lives despite the inconsistencies. I understand that while this was a "composite" of several people. These people were very much alive and suffering an ordeal I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

I hope we can see past this mess and still grasp the message that was sent in "LIving Colours".

As always, the choice is yours....
posted by EricBrooksDotCom at 1:04 PM PST on May 20


Setting up a P.O. box and accepting gifts and donations on behalf of a fictional dying child is mail fraud. Even if Debbie didn't actively solicit anything, she readily admits to have accepted things in the mail. Debbie's real identity should be revealed to prevent this person from defrauding other people in the future.
posted by rcade at 1:04 PM PST on May 20


y6y6y6, I think you have to view the Internet as just another medium. If someone made the same plea on television, or via the telephone, or by mail, I'm sure you'd question it at least a little bit. For whatever reason, we've come to see the Internet as this wholly trustworthy thing from the get-go, and it's taken several good, old-fashioned hoaxes to let people know that it's not the "golden child" new form of communication that some people might still believe it to be. Actually, I don't know anyone who's been on the web or used its precursors that doesn't have at least some wariness. I guess the fact that so many people believed shows that there's a newer sensibility prevalent on the web.
posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 1:04 PM PST on May 20


What I find really interesting about this is that the essay acrid rabbit originally linked to was, for the most part, wrong. The largest clue turned out to be that no one had ever actually met either KayCee or Debbie -- but I had decided that it was mostly inconclusive -- that the reason it seemed to make so much sense was that I was already looking for a hoax, so clues were blown out of proportion. After all, I have plenty of close online friends that I've never met, and I don't doubt them.

I'm just surprised.
posted by tweebiscuit at 1:04 PM PST on May 20


Personally, I am very happy that this thread happened, because I'm certain that "Debbie" would not have come clean if it had not. She could see that her story was falling apart.

On the other hand, I'm ready and willing to drop the whole thing now. I'm not interested in hearing anything about the people involved.

I read Debbie's post and her half hearted apology and don't want to hear any more from her. It seemed to me that she still felt justified some how because the stories she was trying to tell were so worthwhile.

Debbie - next time, tell the truth - the real stories would have been just as valuable as the composite, more so, because now many many people will only remember the deception.
posted by ilanah at 1:05 PM PST on May 20


What I find really interesting about this is that the essay acrid rabbit originally linked to was, for the most part, wrong.

Only if you believe what Debbie and BWG are saying now. But why should anyone? Today's apology looks like an effort to defuse a volatile situation, not to legitimately come clean.
posted by rcade at 1:08 PM PST on May 20


well, i *was* going to offer my 2 cents, but it doesn't really matter now.

she was faked. so what? yes i understand that people 'believed' in her, but let's keep two things in mind:

1. the chances anyone is being completely honest with you on the internet is pretty goddamned small. you should be used to this by now.

2. the emotions you felt when you read her 'entries' were real. did these emotions cause you to appreciate life more than you would have? if the answer is yes, then you were given a gift, no matter how it was presented.

as for me, i don't trust anyone at all really, but if i see someone who looks like they're struggling, and i have the ability to have a positive influence, i'm going to do it.

if i get burnt, so be it. it's their karma, not mine. and if someone else attempts to pull the same stunt, oh well. i'll err on the side of compassion. i'd much rather be fooled than to turn away from someone who needs help.

isn't that what is important here?
posted by jcterminal at 1:08 PM PST on May 20


there is no spoon
posted by heather at 1:08 PM PST on May 20

What I find really interesting about this is that the essay acrid rabbit originally linked to was, for the most part, wrong.

Only if you believe what Debbie and BWG are saying now. But why should anyone? Today's apology looks like an effort to defuse a volatile situation, not to legitimately come clean.

No, I meant that the clues "headspace" brought to light did not, for the most part, pan out.
posted by tweebiscuit at 1:10 PM PST on May 20


i look at it this way: i give out my energy without any expectation of getting back. theres no way i can know every damn detail of every damn situation, so what's the use? a few times it's taken advantage of. but to not give it out in the first place due to fear is the slippery slope that i avoid.

if someone steals your wallet, you are angry. what about thinking about it in this way: maybe they needed the money worse than i did, because they went as far as stealing to get it. this doesn't in any way justify the action, nor does it stop you from attempting to right the situation immediately by calling the police or maybe even chasing after the guy. but the guy's gone now, with your wallet. what the hell are you going to do about it now? stay angry? clutch your purse to your side in fear every time a stranger walks by you? not ever trust again? i hope not.

so maybe i'm too trusting. but it's worked for me so far.
posted by queenkelly at 1:11 PM PST on May 20


I don't know why anyone here believes there is a "debbie" (although how do you cash a check unless it's made out to you? - I guess you get a conspirator to sign it over to you) or her story about a "real" kaycee that she was telling the story about.

it seems clear that there had to be a second person involved (if only for the phone conversations and to sign over checks) but I'm unclear about the rest.

unless there was a substantial financial gain from this whole thing, I have to deduce that "debbie" has significant emotional problems; and one wonders what she did with all those christmas cards....

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 1:11 PM PST on May 20


rcade: do you need to see a body? are you ever going to be happy?
posted by queenkelly at 1:13 PM PST on May 20


I don't know what to say.
I'm relieved. I'm crushed. I'm confused.

I feel like it’s the end of “The Sixth Sense” or “The Usual Suspects” and I am going through every scene, trying to re-visualize what *really* happened.

Who did I talk to on the phone? Who sent the Halloween candy?
Who emailed me for consolation when her beloved Dr. John died in an auto accident last year? Who sent me the Kansas City Royals Hat (KC...get it?) and signed it with Kaycee's name? Who did I speak to on the phone and who left me so many voice messages when I was at CollegeClub? Who opened the care package of cool hats I sent to cover Kaycee’s balding head?

It seems like I should be spiritually destroyed, but oddly, I don’t feel that way.

More than anything, I feel surrounded by love.

Take Kaycee out of the equation: You have a community of people who loved together, hurt together, learned together and consoled each other.

My inbox is filled with messages of love.

Instead of hugging each other over the death of a 19 year old girl, we are consoling each other over the death of a belief. Instead of helping each other to keep Kaycee’s spirit alive within each other, we are helping each other keep our faith in humanity alive.

To everyone who is extending their hearts to each other now, THANK YOU. Kaycee may not be real, but the love flowing through the net right now *is*.



Side Note: This Wednesday at 5:00 pm (Pacific) I’ll be doing a net radio show about Kaycee/Debbie/Love/Mistrust. People are welcome to call in and share their feelings about this whole ordeal. Then at 6:00 will be the weekly HugNation.com Virtual Group Hug. This week, more than any, I think we could all use one.
Both the radio show and hug will be meeting in the “Feel the Love” Lounge
Again, thank you.
posted by halcyon at 1:15 PM PST on May 20


Also, please do knock off the talk about how one cares so much, or how (posted in the previous thread) about how only always comforts one in pain. Goodie for you. You can't judge what's in anyone's heart, and acting as if you can -- or encouraging or participating in emotional promiscuity -- is only begging to get hurt. It's only begging for politicians who can claim that, say, their hearts are in the right place, and how dare anyone question them. (Does this sound familiar? If not, now's the time to stop being apathetic.) Of course no one here is perfect. Still, we'd do well, I think, to "care" in public with some (justifiable) restraint.
posted by raysmj at 1:17 PM PST on May 20


Whatever the details, it is undeniable that 'Debbie' and/or whoever is behind all this caused a great deal of genuine emotional pain for many people when the death of 'Kaycee' was announced last week.

If there was no 'Kaycee', nor perhaps any cancer patient of 'Debbie's acquaintence who died on that day, that is an act of calculated callousness and disgusting behaviour.
posted by normy at 1:18 PM PST on May 20


Seems as good a place to bring up some historical perspective as any: the Village Voice's article about misbehavior in a MUD by one Mr. Bungle, A Rape In Cyberspace, originally published in December 1993; Mark Ethan Smith, who plagued The WELL [25% down], Ann Arbor's similar M-Net, and USENET newsgroups [end] ca. 1985-89; and other USENET cranks with shifting identities, such as John Grubor. (Beyond such blatant flame and real-world abuse, USENET is simply rife with people who aren't who they claim to be, partcularly since the September that Never Ended when AOL and its n screen-names per account came online -- but mostly with sex-chat personae and very few with that kind of staying power.)

Personally, I don't think this is of earthshaking importance, having seen a number of such 'constructs' blow up online in my (increasingly numerous) days. But if I'd ever sent a gift or money to this "Kaycee" construct, I would right now be drafting a letter to the district attorney of the county to which I mailed those gifts.
posted by dhartung at 1:18 PM PST on May 20


rcade: do you need to see a body? are you ever going to be happy?

look, this story is no more believeable than the first; in fact, it is less-so.

why would this "kaycee" take *debbie's* surname, and and why would debbie decide to make posts in her name? if debbie was eager to tell "kaycee's" story, why would she decide to conflate it with the stories of two other people?

were these people all alive at the beginning of the story, and when "kaycee" was in desperate straits, was one of them dying or very ill? if two of them were long gone, why add their stories into those of the currently alive "kaycee"? did "kaycee" ever see the weblog? would she object to seeing things written that weren't about her?

do you see my point? I don't really believe in any of the three people debbie was supposedly telling about; I'm interested in finding out more about "debbie" and I'm very interested in finding out how much money she received from sympathetic readers.

if those people would come forward, then we could judge what we're dealing with here.

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 1:23 PM PST on May 20


I have unanswered questions. I don't give a damn what "Debbie" says at this point. I'd like to know where the care packages I sent and the amazon gift cert went. I want to know who sent me the care package.
I found Debbie by following what we now know. Kansas. "Kaycee" used Debbie's last name. Put the two together people. I am still digging, not because I am not still grateful for what my friendship with "kaycee" brought, but because my daughter used her allowance to send care packages. I'm not going to post what I find here because I am doing it for myself and my daughter, but I encourage anyone else with similar concerns to follow the clues and do their own research.
Seems to me that Debbie is one very sick individual. I've lost people close to me who deserved to have their stories told and never even considered masquerading as them. Sick and Twisted.
posted by amber_eden at 1:24 PM PST on May 20


y6y6y6, I didn't think about it too much until someone else posted that it might not be true. And when I started looking at the blog and at the facts, it started to smell funny. I would like to think that part of my day job is taking that hand that is reaching out to me, or at least facilitating others helping.

tweebiscuit, I don't agree that all of what acrid rabbit wrote was incorrect. In fact, I think it was the hurried funeral and service that raised suspicions. When people lie, there is a pattern of unverifiable narrative, and that's what we got from "Debbie": it felt like something was being covered up.

This still doesn't feel right, though. What was it that triggered "Debbie" to come forward and take the blog down? Was she checking Metafilter? And people say they spoke to both "Debbie" and "Kaycee" on the phone; did they both exist? Was there really ever a "Kaycee"?
posted by tranquileye at 1:26 PM PST on May 20


One thing that keeps coming back is the unlimited power of people to believe in something, no matter how insane. There are those here who continue to put forward that even though we know the entire episode was an intentional hoax, the value of the emotions themselves are real. Uh, no. You've been manipulated and lied to.

I guess the question those out there should be thinking is, why were you so emotionally invested in this whole thing? How was it that a distant tale of grief held and holds such power over you?

If you're looking for a sad story that tugs on your heart strings, I'm sure you can a real one. If nothing else the world is filled with misery. Go out there and find it!
posted by zebra_monkey at 1:31 PM PST on May 20


cf: Life, death and Everquest

in which a guide gets fired, commits suicide, is mourned by the community, and then turns out never to have existed.

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 1:33 PM PST on May 20


zebra_monkey, as much as I'm of a similar view to you, I don't think you can actually place an objective "value" on emotions. I think this bizarre incident just highlights the fact that there are some very different ways of viewing the world, and that uh, never the twain shall meet.
posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 1:36 PM PST on May 20


I hope we can see past this mess and still grasp the message that was sent in "Living Colours".

The only message I'm taking away from Living Colors is that when sick people prey on the emotions of others, they are forgiven by those who feel the message is worthwhile.

Sorry folks. You've all heard the trite & true saying: the ends do not justify the means.

"Debbie" might have had a worthwhile story to tell (again assuming one believes what she says now), but by telling that story in such a deceptive and manipulative manner, the only message is "daymn that's really sick."
posted by faith at 1:38 PM PST on May 20


it really disappointed me to read that kaycee wasn't real. i don't hate debbie because it's possible that she (if she even exists) had good intentions, but she was wrong to go about her plan as she did. no excuses can hide the fact that she lied, and on an extremely large scale.

i have a fairly hollow feeling about the whole thing in general, that i'm sure many other people who read 'kaycee's' site can identify with.
posted by minor 9th at 1:41 PM PST on May 20


Debbie-hunters take note, any email you ever get from a hotmail account has a special header with the IP address the message originated from (where the author was sitting at the time) to prevent total anonymous correspondence.

This header is called <X-Originating-IP>

I received one email from Debbie last September 17, at 2:30 AM CDT was from: 209.134.87.160

It's a dialup in Kansas. Find a more recent message, locate the ISP, and have them search their customer logs to see who exactly was logged in and where they were when the emails were sent, and that's your Debbie.
posted by mathowie at 1:42 PM PST on May 20


If you are the victim of a fraud, and you are are cynically manipulated. Your compassion is used as a tool against you, you are a mark. Those emotions are in fact given to someone who does not deserve them. In that situation, I would say that the compassion you feel is nothing more than part of the fraud.

Only in a world where people are so isolated and alienated from each other (or one could argue so aesthetically removed from reality) could one argue that the emotions felt are more important than the cause.

Alright folks, I'm taking a walk. It's a beautiful day. I advise you all to take a walk, bike ride yourself. Or better yet, call up or meet up with someone you really KNOW and care about. Adios.
posted by zebra_monkey at 1:43 PM PST on May 20


Find a more recent message, locate the ISP, and have them search their customer logs to see who exactly was logged in and where they were when the emails were sent, and that's your Debbie.

It will help if you have a court order, of course. I think the likelihood of an ISP giving this information out to any random person who asked is pretty slim.
posted by kindall at 1:44 PM PST on May 20


Everyone should be reading what rcade and rcb are saying. Even if you were emotionally devastated by the whole affair, it seems highly unlikely that "this is it."

Why would anyone believe anything "Debbie" has to say at this point? After so much handwringing and suspicion, the answers just seem too pat, too much of a false compromise to admit that it wasn't 100% real, but not admit much wrongdoing, which there clearly was.

But I have to say, following this thread over the weekend was very, very interesting. I haven't stayed online this consistently since... well maybe ever.
posted by FPN at 1:45 PM PST on May 20


do you need to see a body? are you ever going to be happy?

We can't all be people who sympathize with a pickpocket because he really needs the money.
posted by rcade at 1:47 PM PST on May 20


kindall, I'm not saying that I or you could get those logs, but if anyone with any sort of sway in the world read it, that's how you could end this once and for all.
posted by mathowie at 1:48 PM PST on May 20


i personally ran into kaycee's blog not long ago. i was touched, cried for a while as i sat and read through it. i even added a link to my website. this morning when i went to check and see if debbie had said anything and i found the confession, as well as the words from bwg, i was disgusted.

while the person who was supposed to be "kaycee nicole" did touch me, and i appreciated having the story to read. i feel there are better ways to have done this, whether or not she was a real person matters big time to those of us who feel like we were totally duped. we were made to believe something that was not true and in the end we were first hurt by grieving for someone we thought died and then we were hurt by finding out that we were grieving over the death of a hoax.

this is just too much. my stomach is nit knots, i would really like to know where people come up with some of their crazy ideas and why they would ever want to do something like this. if debbie wanted to tell a story about three people, there were much better ways to do it. she didn't have to hurt so many people in the process.
posted by caren at 1:50 PM PST on May 20


I think that when one has been cheated and finds out, there is a strong desire to get to know the whole story. Especially when there was emotional involvement.
posted by Tara at 1:50 PM PST on May 20


importantly, matt, if enough people who sent debbie money (or gifts) stepped forward, then they'd have grounds for an investigation. but you'd need at least a handful of people to get such a thing started.

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 1:51 PM PST on May 20


"unless there was a substantial financial gain from this whole thing, I have to deduce that
"debbie" has significant emotional problems"

Well that remains to be seen. But there are some WELL documented cases on the web of insane or emotionally disturbed people using websites to get attention. A.J. Weberman, former webmaster of Dylanology.com, claimed everything from a government conspiracy to get Bob Dylan hooked on hard drugs so that that he wouldn't write protest songs to Dylan currently being infected with aids. All of this based on "lyric interpretations". Weberman is now in jail. There was a woman named Denice Sharpe who thought that David Gilmour from Pink Floyd wrote the Division Bell album as a personal love letter to her. She posted all sorts of crazy theories and evidences to alt.music.pink-floyd (even claiming that the new lucky charms marshmellow was a sign from David Gilmour). Her exploites have been detailed in depth. There are lots of stories like this. It is sort of a hobby of mine to keep track of cases of people creating fantasies on the web because of psychological conditions.

So what is the point? All of these people truely believe what they are saying. They are not lying in their minds. I am in no way claiming that Debbie is crazy, but I do think there is something very unusual about the whole situation. It is one thing to write a fictional story about a cancer victim to give others hope. It is an entirely different thing to go to the lengths that Debbie went.

In the words of halycon:

Who did I talk to on the phone? Who sent the Halloween candy?
Who emailed me for consolation when her beloved Dr. John died in an auto accident last
year? Who sent me the Kansas City Royals Hat (KC...get it?) and signed it with Kaycee's
name? Who did I speak to on the phone and who left me so many voice messages when I
was at CollegeClub? Who opened the care package of cool hats I sent to cover Kaycee?s
balding head?

posted by bonzo at 1:53 PM PST on May 20


This is just a hunch, but I think it's possible that Debbie is grieving and has been during the entire run of Living Colours. Rational people simply don't do what she did, and the grief-stricken are rarely rational. It is unusual for people to grieve that long, but sometimes grief can trigger a more serious breakdown and slide into a more or less permanent and serious mental illness. Perhaps she lost someone close to her first, or perhaps it was triggered by finding out that three people she knew had all come down with terminal illnesses at about the same time. It may even be possible that Debbie herself has a terminal illness and has no one close to her to support her. Whatever the source of her pain, perhaps Debbie created Living Colours to help her to deal with it. Of course it's not a good idea to take it as far as she did, but then, that's only obvious if you're thinking clearly. I think this is the key -- that Debbie is, for some reason, not thinking clearly, that it really did seem like a good idea at the time to her.

This isn't the only scenario that could explain what's happened, and I have no inside track on the situation, but if my conjecture is anywhere close to the mark, it's entirely possible that the entire scenario will never make any sense to those of us who don't know Debbie well enough to understand her suffering.
posted by kindall at 1:58 PM PST on May 20


Call me simple, but could somebody explain to me, in very few & small words, exactly what happened here? I'm confused as to the chronology of the Kaycee/Debbie mess.
posted by davidmsc at 1:59 PM PST on May 20


I really don't know what to say. I didn't know "Kaycee," "Debbie" or whoever these people were, but yet I followed this blog every day since around last September or so and believed every word of it. I sent "Kaycee" a few emails and even referred a friend who has a real daughter with cancer to the blog, hoping that it would give her some strength and inspiration to get through her fight.

How silly I was, apparently. Normally I consider myself pretty apt to see through to a scam, yet I was taken in by this. I'm just sitting here flabbergasted that this happened and wondering how I can tell this woman I know that the whole thing was a fraud. Sure, there's the message of the blog, but how can you believe the message when the messenger just ain't real? Sadder but wiser, I guess.
posted by digital_insomnia at 2:00 PM PST on May 20


1) The address listed near the top of this search results page is 18 miles from the P.O. Box address (which was in Newton, KS).

2) The IP matt listed had "peabody" in it. Peabody is the name of the city in the address found at the above link. There's also a phone number listed there if people are curious about that info.
posted by gluechunk at 2:07 PM PST on May 20


davidmsc:

Kaycee had a weblog for quite a while detailing her battle with leukemia. She went through repeated sessions of relapse of the disease and finally "died" Monday. Many people had talked to her online.

People started to doubt her authenticity. The "family" refused to post any address to send condolences/cards. No pictures we posted, no memorial information given out, etc. People realised that NO ONE had actually met her in real life. Several people searched for obituaries, high school basketball records, etc according to details in her weblog but nothing turned up. Many of her close friends posted that they were upset at all this doubt.

The wild investigations continued. People posted pictures asking if this or that person matched the descriptions. No hard evidence of her existance could be found and none would be provided by the family. Close friends begin to doubt.

Today, it was finally revealed that the "mother" of the girl wasn't her mother, but instead she claims the girl was a fact-based creation centered on experiences of three friends who had battled cancer.

Now everyone who has sent things to Kaycee wants to know where the things went and who exactly they were talking to. The mother claims she passed these things on to the families of the 3 victims. But the "mother"'s credibility is certainly questionable and possibly her very existence at all.

That is where we are.
posted by bonzo at 2:09 PM PST on May 20


I didn't see any address from the last google link, but I see one here
posted by futureproof at 2:16 PM PST on May 20


this page (linked to on the other thread) seems to support that debbie and tom swenson moved from oklahoma to lawrence, kansas in 1999.
posted by sugarfish at 2:19 PM PST on May 20


well, damn, i'm not sure where i got lawrence from. but it says they moved to kansas.
posted by sugarfish at 2:25 PM PST on May 20


you got lawrence from the second site of that google search results page.
posted by Tara at 2:32 PM PST on May 20


futureproof's Peabody Kansas sounds pretty good. There is a Tom and Debbie Swenson which corresponds with the swenson site.

Does anyone have any confirmation that the swenson site and the debbie of kaycee nicole fame are somehow linked?
posted by jay at 2:32 PM PST on May 20


i don't consider myself a cynic. i consider myself a realist.

for those who felt badly for kaycee's "death," i applaud you. you are good people; please, never change. the world needs as many of you as it can get.

it's really easy to get caught up with the anonymity of the internet. in spite of that, people tend to extend their approach towards real life to the internet. but you should never forget that all is not what it seems. most of us lock the doors to our houses or apartments; that is not done out of cynical doubt of our neighbors intentions. i feel that there is absolutely nothing cynical about, if nothing else, simply keeping in mind those you meet on the internet are not who you think they are.

the internet provides a great opportunity for people who have motive to impersonate or create other personas. you don't have to live in paranoia of everyone you meet on the 'net; just keep that in mind.
posted by moz at 2:33 PM PST on May 20


do we have any reason to believe that debbie swenson hasn't had her identity usurped? that she used her own name seems to be the obvious and simplest answer, but if this were a movie, the owner of her ISP would be the real culprit. :)

anyway, let's be careful before we get too sure about things....

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 2:34 PM PST on May 20


It's weird how something has to happen sometimes to see how you actually feel about something. --- Angela, 'My So-Called Life'
posted by feelinglistless at 2:43 PM PST on May 20


Rebecca, I think the only way we can find that out is for someone who talked to Kaycee/Debbie on the telephone to provide confirmation on the phone number. Preferably, someone who the MEFI community can trust as well. If it is not, it would then appear that Debbie and Tom should find out anyway as someone has obviously involved them in this hoax.

Its been amazing watching this thing unfold over the last 20 hour or so hours I have been following it.
posted by jay at 2:46 PM PST on May 20


I go away for a couple of days and look what happens.

What a total mindjob.

I don't think I'll ever trust anyone online as much again - not on blind faith anyway.
posted by tomcosgrave at 2:47 PM PST on May 20


Somebody refresh my memory - how did we turn up with the "Swenson family" site (Tom and Debbie) ?
posted by Tara at 2:52 PM PST on May 20


If anyone who sent money or gifts decides that this is a matter for legal authorities, the Postal Inspection Service office with authority to investigate mail fraud in Kansas is at 1106 Walnut St., St. Louis, MO 63199-2201; phone number (314) 539-9300.

I wasn't financially involved, so I'm not going to contact the postal service myself. I do think that people who gave her things should be exchanging information with each other, because that's the only way to determine if the gifts were incidental or part of a larger, intentional effort to con people out of money.
posted by rcade at 2:53 PM PST on May 20


Rebecca, I think the only way we can find that out is for someone who talked to Kaycee/Debbie on the
telephone to provide confirmation on the phone number. Preferably, someone who the MEFI community
can trust as well.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't think that the MeFi community has a right to know. Debbie and KayCee were not even members. Those who were friends were them (her) certainly deserve to know what's going on, but as much as I'd like to hear the full story, I don't have any right whatsoever to demand it.

Especially since all this speculation about Debbie's motives are exactly that -- maybe she was lonely, maybe she was crazy, maybe she was sick, maybe she was malicious, maybe... some of you are demanding some sort of accounting with very little of the facts in hand. Sure, she deceived a lot of people, but it doesn't necessarily follow that she deserves punishment. (Although I suppose that depends a lot on your ethical affiliation. Personally, I'd much prefer to see Debbie get help than sued.)
posted by tweebiscuit at 2:55 PM PST on May 20


I want to start out by saying that I'd never even heard of Kaycee until this all turned up on MiFi, but I'm amazed at all the time and energy that so many people are spending on this.

Does anyone but me still remember the original definition of "community"? Let me quote Webster's:
"A group of people residing in the same locality and under the same government".

Folks, there are real Debbie's and Kaycee's living in your hometown right now, who need your help. Real single moms who are giving up sleep and food and sanity to devote all resources to their critically ill children. Real children and young adults who are fighting this battle, sometimes a battle that the patient is actually too young to understand. There are adults out there who have no living family, who are forced, more or less, to face this kind of up-and-down, real, day-to-day battle alone. These are people who need your help just as much as Debbie and Kaycee seemed to, and these are people who are real … who you can meet, talk to, become friends with (or, if you prefer to maintain a certain distance - I can understand that) simply verify the identity of.

Those of you who were so willing to send money, gifts, and letters of support to a girl who you had seen or met or spoken to … I admire the impulse behind your action, but I have to ask: what have you done in your own communities? Would you give up one Saturday to read to kids at your local hospital? Or just buy books and hats for those kids? Give money to organizations like the Jimmy Fund or Make-a-Wish? Give blood? Or did responding to an email or a message in a blog by dropping five bucks in the mail or ordering a book from Amazon make you feel like you had 'done your part'?

amber_eden, halcyon, y6y6y6 and the rest of you out there who feel taken and hurt, I can't say that I don't have sympathy for you. I do. But quit devoting your time and money and energy to anger and revenge and prosocution and do something positive with all that energy. There are people living in your Zip code who need your help. Do for them what you did for Kaycee. Send them a hat, or a book, or a Get Well card. I guarantee they're real, that they need help, and that they'll be very grateful.

And I bet it will make you feel better, too.

Some resources if you want to help cancer patients in your own area include The Ronald McDonald House, The Make-a-Wish Foundation, Gilda's Club, your local chapter of the Salvation Army or The Red Cross, or look in your local yellow pages under "Cancer Support Groups".
posted by anastasiav at 3:01 PM PST on May 20


I'd like to know where the care packages I sent and the amazon gift cert went.

I'd suggest giving Amazon a call. I'm sure they won't just have over all relevant details about the account based on a single phone call, but they can tell you what process you must go through in order to get them to release that information. Generally, it would be a request from a law enforcement agency. So if you can get anyone in your local PD willing to look into this as potential mail or wire fraud, or perhaps the USPS's postal inspectors, they could get that info from Amazon very easily.

The only message I'm taking away from Living Colors is that when sick people prey on the emotions of others, they are forgiven by those who feel the message is worthwhile.

Well, people ought to forgive, just for the sake of their own emotional well-being. Better to forgive and stop letting it bother you, than spend weeks, months or years continuing to simmer about it. But the forgiveness should be about Debbie's fraud, not because "it just shouldn't matter anyway as long as the blog personally made me feel better about life." To me, the latter requires one to have some serious problems comprehend the most basic, important differences between reality and fiction, and potentially indicates a deeper emotional problem in those with that belief.

As for how easy or hard it is to scam others online in this way: I traded some emails with Steven over the last couple of days on this subject, and I realized that it's far easier to dupe people online that most think. The simple fact is that practically nobody in this world is so inherently skeptical and paranoid about everyone they come into contact with online that they harbor continued suspicions about each of their existences until they can pair up some piece of RL info to each online character. Our natural state of affairs is to not go looking for it, and to not even consider going to look for it. Given this fact, I have only ever seen three ways in which a fake online persona ever gets his/her true identity questioned and then eventually outed:

1) They make a truly massive blunder that makes everyone realize the fraud instantly. For example, someone discovers the persona is always posting from the same IP address as someone else on the system who claims to live 2000 miles away.

2) The persona makes the mistake of becoming too popular, to the point where too many people want to start communicating with them, but every single one is continually rebuffed for increasingly dubious reasons. (A little of this seems to have happened with Kaycee last year, but most of the questioners got suppressed quickly with a lot of "how dare you question someone with terminal leukemia" peer pressure, and the issue faded quickly.)

3) You kill off the persona. This is guaranteed to unleash a huge chorus of people begging for information on where to send condolences, flowers, maybe even show up for the funeral, etc. And of course, at that point the persona's "friends" are forced to spin elaborate, and totally unbelievable, excuses about why none of the mourners can even so much as send a Hallmark card to the grieving family. Steven noted in the other thread about a similar case on Anandtech last week, where someone was able to pull off one of these fake personas for almost a year, but the moment he killed off the character, the entire thing fell apart.

If someone with a fake character was smart enough to never make the persona so elaborate that (1) never happens, and never lets the persona become too popular or die as in (2) or (3), I wouldn't be surprised if they could pull it off for several years without a hitch.
posted by aaron at 3:04 PM PST on May 20


So Kaycee was a construct.... I only read a few entries to her Blog long ago and I remember thinking then that for a 19 year old the passages seemed incredibly well-written, emotionally complex, and terribly moving.

I'm going to list some definitions which may be useful for the discussion:

DUPE, TRICK, HOAX mean to deceive by underhanded means. DUPE suggests unwariness in the person deluded; TRICK implies an intent to delude by means of a ruse or fraud but does not always imply a vicious intent; HOAX implies the contriving of an elaborate or adroit imposture in order to deceive.
posted by Chairman_MaoXian at 3:15 PM PST on May 20


Hey, guys....I posted my thoughts on the matter on my blog. If you want to read it, you can.

::sad::

Hasta luego,

Redgie
posted by Redgie at 3:15 PM PST on May 20


I don't understand, by the way, why these personas are always killed off. The guy on Anandtech had a fictional woman and her infant daughter die in a car accident. That's not just a loss, it's a tragedy. Instead of concocting an elaborate story, why not just have the persona quit the internet? "I need to focus more on work..." etc.? I suppose it might be the attention, awful as it is to say -- but lord knows I've fantasized about how people would react after my death plenty of times. It's certainly attractive. Before we entirely blame Debbie, I think we should all reflect a little bit on why she would do this, and see if we don't all have some manifestation of those desires, if only a little. I'm not apologizing for her, just reaffirming her humanity.
posted by tweebiscuit at 3:15 PM PST on May 20


I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't think that the MeFi community has a right to know.

Who cares? She'd still be conning people if not for pressure from places like MetaFilter. When I read in the local paper that someone is robbing people through bogus telemarketing scams, I don't question my right to know the information.
posted by rcade at 3:17 PM PST on May 20


i've been holding my tongue about this whole situation, mostly because this has happened to me before -- when i was in high school i was (sorry!) a pretty serious fan of the broadway musical "rent". one of the rentheads from out of town, heather, would come to nyc when she could to see the show and she also communicated with the renthead community via our email mailing lists. she told everyone about the serious illness she had and got a lot of people very emotionally involved. over time she got sicker and sicker and her friend started emailing a large group of people to keep them updated on heather's medical state. heather went into a coma, had operations, etc. and the friend, monika, kept pounding out the emails. she encouraged everyone to send her flowers and cards and gifts and especially encouraged people to get cast members of rent to send things to heather.

in the end it was all the doing of heather herself & some people uncovered the truth and heather was exposed. she was doing it to get attention from the various casts of the show. (which wasn't really necessary -- back then the casts were all completely open and friendly to fans & they gave fans tons of attention, whether they were ill or not.) this was a girl we had all met. we had spent serious amounts of time with an actual human person. she talked to people on the phone all the time.

during that drama, as in this one, i was never too emotionally involved, personally. i stayed on the outskirts, kept up with the story only casually, because i didn't feel close to either girl. but when people started asking questions as to the veracity of the stories we were believing, i followed both very closely.

you may have heard this story on this american life, we did a fairly long piece in which many of involved parties gave interviews and ira glass narrated. it was act III in an episode called "hoaxing yourself."

anyway.

from what i understand, and i have been following this closely, there really was a kaycee who many people have spoken to. the major clue that made people suspicious was that no one had ever met kaycee and no one could prove that there really was a kaycee. so if the circumstances were slightly different, kaycee might have met some people & we probably never would have forced debbie’s hand & she would have gotten away with this.

chew on that.
posted by palegirl at 3:18 PM PST on May 20


"I don't think that the MeFi community has a right to know."

Ya, that makes lots of sense. "I know you folks were deceived and lied to, but I don't think you have any right to the truth."
posted by y6y6y6 at 3:21 PM PST on May 20


"just reaffirming her humanity."

You are making me ill.
posted by y6y6y6 at 3:23 PM PST on May 20


rcb: unless there was a substantial financial gain from this whole thing, I have to deduce that "debbie" has significant emotional problems; and one wonders what she did with all those christmas cards.... I only read a few entries in the kaycee blog once it had been announced that she died, so I've mostly been observing all of this with great interest. My thoughts after I read some of it were that I was touched, but that the person in it didn't seem, well, REAL, in the sense of having human tendencies. Like I said, I have not read the blog except for a few entries, but I smelled something.... idealized. From the little info I've seen, "Debbie" appears to have an overidentification with victims (particularly cancer victims) and seemed to put them on a pedestal - this is what I know think I saw in that blog. (hindsight and all) She got a LOT of energy out of doing all of this and I agree, she needs help, probably for a variety of reasons. I also think this is a great lesson for ANYONE that we can all feel deeply and yet still THINK and trust out intuition when something doesn't line up quite right. And as for forgetting your anger and focusing on people around you who DO need help, well, I have to say that if you feel angry, then FEEL it. Maybe your desire to prosecute is the only thing that will push "Debbie" into REALLY getting some help, if you want to look at it that way. Some of the ways that we "help" our "communities" (be they cyber or geographical) aren't always so obvious.
posted by thunder at 3:26 PM PST on May 20


y6y6y6 -- you were obviously personally hurt by this. So go ahead, search. But as a poster on a public forum who is only acquainted with KayCee through this thread and the previous one, I don't feel that Debbie owes me anything whatsoever. My comment was for those who are in the same position. I'd urge you (and everyone else) to do whatever you can to get the information that you feel you need to resolve this issue for yourself. It's ridiculous to say that the MeFi community at large deserves to know all the details. After all, how many of us were taken in by KayCee before all of this started? I'm willing to bet that an awful lot of us had never heard of or didn't care about KayCee until the controversy started.

The set of Metafilter users DOES NOT equal the set of people who knew or were concerned with KayCee. Period. Please don't try to equate the two.
posted by tweebiscuit at 3:30 PM PST on May 20


"But if this were a movie, the owner of her ISP would be the real culprit. :) "

That begs the question.... Who does own the rights to the movie?

It would seem to me that just one complaint to the police would set some sort of investigation in motion. I'm sure people's intention aren't to be cruel or to cause further distress to someone who may be grieving, but it would seem that a lot of people wish to know where their money and gifts went.

They appear to be people who wouldn't press charges if indeed it turns out that Debbie is unwell, was sending those gifts on to people who really were in need, or some like scenario.

I support the idea that people were right to care; that this was a good emotion. However the people who wish to inquire further into this, well, they are right too. They aren't necessarily disparate viewpoints.
posted by lucien at 3:34 PM PST on May 20


I cannot see any reason to defend 'Debbie' here. 'Debbie' has committed emotional (if not more serious) fraud, manipulated many people to the point of experiencing genuine unhappiness and done her(?) part to increase the overall sum of cynicism and distrust on the web and elsewhere.

Don't the people who were deceived (I'd argue that that means anyone who read the 'Kaycee' blog under the impression it was, as presented, true) deserve to have their humanity respected by ensuring that at least one trickster is prevented from perpetuating or repeating such a lie?

People being angry for being conned is a healthy human reaction, surely?
posted by normy at 3:36 PM PST on May 20


People being angry for being conned is a healthy human reaction, surely?

Yes, of course, and I'm not disagreeing with that. But my personal feelings are that this wasn't malicious -- that Debbie did this out of loneliness or grief. Even if she's "sick", as some have been saying, then she deserves help, not condemnation. I'd much rather see a disturbed person get help out of all of this than a "trickster" be punished.

Even if I'm wrong, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt for now. That's the way I am, I suppose. I originally felt that KayCee was a hoax, and I'm glad I was right, but I think that compassion is needed in this situaiton -- as it is at all times. Maybe it's because I'm a Buddhist. Sorry.
posted by tweebiscuit at 3:40 PM PST on May 20


Even if she's "sick", as some have been saying, then she deserves help, not condemnation.

I think this is where we disagree. If she's sick, she deserves help and condemnation.
posted by normy at 3:44 PM PST on May 20


I think this is where we disagree. If she's sick, she deserves help and condemnation.

Fine. But please, please don't let the second outweigh the first. Revenge isn't going to help anyone here.
posted by tweebiscuit at 3:50 PM PST on May 20


So is repression the way to a better world? I don't believe so. I don't think her intentions were bad (I'm speculating). People with un-bad intentions who end up creating a big mess usually are punished enough by the mess itself.
posted by Tara at 3:50 PM PST on May 20


I'm still wondering who those pictures were of. the geocities kaycee site: www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Frontrow/3838/kc.html
is part of kelli's insynch site: www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Frontrow/3838/

(and the kaycee site appears to have once linked to the in synch site, if you look at the code.).

who is the girl depicted in all these photographs? does she know her pictures are online? it would be simple enough to go the school and find out who this girl is, I suppose. but what's the deal?

tweebisquit: unless you know the extent of monetary gain by 'debbie', I don't think you can ascribe motives here. it may be that she was just recycling gifts to all her admirers. I have no idea.

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 3:52 PM PST on May 20


Aaron: These folks also assume, usually correctly, that those who harbor suspicions won't say anything unless they're absolutely certain that something is fishy. Or they wait for someone else to bring the matter up. For the most part, this is only the right thing to do.

Before, however, I had a limited interest in the Kaycee matter. I thought at first that this had to be something that had been going on before I was even lurking at metafilter. Maybe this was someone from the Bay area, I didn't know. People surely acted as if they were very familiar with the person, though. Then others came in falling all over themselves to say how much they cared, and had been touched even though this was the first time they read it. I was bothered by the latter posing, but still stayed out of the fray. I went to Kaycee's log later, and thought this looked like something very heartland feel-good-Protestant-meets-Disney. The cloying talk and overwrought poems. Cloying, it was, but I'm not going to make fun of anyone I even remotely have reason to believe is an actual dying person.

(It's better to poke fun of that sort of thing from some distance in fiction or satire. A good, classic example is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and its hysterically funny bit in which Huck looks over the drawings of a deceased girl who had an apparent death wish. Oh, and please recall that the fictional Huck's caring was proven by his actions and our getting to know his fictional persona over the course of a novel, warts and all.)

So why I did I still not say anything? Despite all the talk about American cynicism, what I saw in the Kaycee-death thread wasn't all that unusual. And in saying that I'm neither praising nor outright condemning what was going on. We all should be careful, and show restraint, and see people as neither all good nor all bad.
posted by raysmj at 3:54 PM PST on May 20


I must say, I'm really impressed by the tenacity of the MeFi Detective Unit in uncovering this fraudulence.

I would have just said "she died, it's sad..." and then resumed what I was doing. I wasn't following her saga but I knew about it, and never would I have suspected a hint of insincerity.

I'm with the "cynics" camp. I don't for a second believe "Debbie" is giving us the whole story. It's just too incomprehensible of a sham to pull, the way she described it. I mean, what would be her motivation for melding three people into one and relaying their collective stories under a common pseudonym?

This ordeal has certainly raised my awareness of scamsters, as well as my level of social paranoia. Though I hate to think about the idea, I'm starting to wonder who among the online "crowd" is whom they say the are.
posted by Succa at 4:03 PM PST on May 20


tweebisquit: unless you know the extent of monetary gain by 'debbie', I don't think you can ascribe motives here. it may
be that she was just recycling gifts to all her admirers. I have no idea.

Exactly my point. As I said, I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt for now. However, I honestly doubt that monetary gain was a factor -- KayCee's words, in this light, sound like someone trying really hard to get people to like her. I have a crippling self-esteem problem that has fucked up almost every relationship and friendship I've ever had -- so for now, I'm going to do my best to be compassionate for someone who might just be further down the hole than I am. If I were in Debbie's situation, that what I'd hope someone would do for me.

(again, i'm sure that this is not possible for a lot of people who have been hurt by this. i'm just expressing my feelings about the situation.)
posted by tweebiscuit at 4:03 PM PST on May 20


My two cents. Sigh.
posted by fraying at 4:07 PM PST on May 20


I had no knowledge of Kaycee's blog until a couple of days ago, but this has been a most fascinating thread, and I just wanted to thank all the participants for dealing with this potentially explosive topic in an honest and direct manner, be it in support of Kaycee's existence, or in the interest of finding out the truth. With little exception, this has been an example of what a MeFi discussion can be at it's best.
posted by jess at 4:11 PM PST on May 20


I'm forced to wonder why anyone would give any more credibility to BWG than to "Debbie" (who we know, if exists, is a fraud.) He has:

1. Been the host, designer, and editor of "Kaycee" and "Debbie's" sites from the beginning.

2. Responded irrationally (and, perhaps, violently) when people first began to question the veracity of Kaycee's stories.

3. Posted an "I don't want to talk about it anymore" post on his weblog, which conveniently excuses him from any further discussion.

Of course his WHOIS data is valid; he very well may be perpetrating this entire incident himself, however.
posted by Danelope at 4:22 PM PST on May 20


"I don't think that the MeFi community has a right to know."

And why not? I imagine that the scope of people who've been hurt by this goes far beyond the MeFi community. If this community can do something for those people who are not as web-saavy about fraud, hoaxes, or whatever one wants to call it, then why shouldn't the community use it's resources to do so? Seems to me, not only should they, but in some sense they have an obligation to.

And tweebiscuit: Please explain the source of your assertion that "Debbie's" motives were not bad ones. I don't see how anyone has a factual basis to claim that.
posted by faith at 4:23 PM PST on May 20


Jess: Agreed.

Wow, I am so impressed. These two threads - my initial one and this follow-up - are testaments to the beauty that Matt's created here. This is why I'm a daily visitor, and why I heart MeFi.

I really was nervous about starting this. I was terrified that I'd be hurting people with my questions. And I'm really sorry for the hurt that I've caused to any true believers.

And I'm really glad that this is such a mature community. I don't think that I'ver ever been this proud to call myself a member of anything.

I sure hope that we can get closure on this someday.
posted by acridrabbit at 4:25 PM PST on May 20


>2. Responded irrationally (and, perhaps, violently) when people first began to question the veracity of Kaycee's stories.<

I disagree. I thought his response was quite predictable and well within the range of normal for anyone who was witnessing an accusation that someone they loved was fictional. violently? please.

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 4:32 PM PST on May 20


Man, I haven't had so much fun since I was played, played, and played again.
posted by benbrown at 4:32 PM PST on May 20


Danelope,
That thought occurred to me and I doubt we're the only ones. But working alone with an IP in Hong Kong and a PO Box in Kansas? I can't get my head around that.
posted by normy at 4:32 PM PST on May 20


And why not? I imagine that the scope of people who've been hurt by this goes far beyond the MeFi community. If this
community can do something for those people who are not as web-saavy about fraud, hoaxes, or whatever one wants to
call it, then why shouldn't the community use it's resources to do so? Seems to me, not only should they, but in some
sense they have an obligation to.

There are certainly numerous members of Metafilter who have been hurt by this, and more outside of it. However, as I said above, not everyone on Metafilter fits that critera. Debbie has absolutely no obligation to the Metafilter community in and of itself, only to the individuals who were taken in by her. She should have to answer to them, not to us. After all, think about it -- what exactly links Metafilter to Debbie at all? That a lot of members knew her? Hey, a bunch of people in the state of New York talked to Debbie too -- maybe we should inform those tens of millions of people too. Do you see my point?

(sorry to be snarky -- i'm just a sucker for illustrative examples.)

And tweebiscuit: Please explain the source of your assertion that "Debbie's" motives were not bad ones. I don't see how
anyone has a factual basis to claim that.

Please refer to this response.
posted by tweebiscuit at 4:32 PM PST on May 20


You know, I posted on my blog to keep faith and everything.

I am gonna be 100% honest, though. It's hard, considering all that has happened, to know who or what to believe anymore.

::sigh::

I feel deceived....

Redgie
posted by Redgie at 4:32 PM PST on May 20


>I'm forced to wonder why anyone would give any more credibility to BWG than to "Debbie"<

follow the money. the now defunct po box was in kansas, was it not? bwg has been established as being in hong kong, no?

the po box would have to be close to the person receiving the loot.

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 4:34 PM PST on May 20


i did something and i'm not sure if it was the right thing to do so before i tell it i want to explain my reasoning.

i was concerned about debbie. i think she is someone who snapped, has a problem, needs help. i don't think there was malicious intent. i was worried about an angry mob going after her and wanted to try and find someone who could help her out in some way. maybe listen without judging.

i called the baptist church that appears in a photo on kelli's site. i talked with the pastor, troy manley, and explained to him what was happening. he was very much in shock. he said that debbie and tom swenson were members of his church. they do have two children a boy and a girl, the girl named kelli. she was a secretary at the church for three years. they did move to kansas in 1999.

he said that she appeared to be troubled before they moved though she did not confide in him the reason. he said that she had lost her mother in law that year after an illness and that seemed to cause some problems in the family. her husband often did not attend church with her. i asked if there were anyone that year who might be "kaycee". he said that in fact a young woman maybe 28-30 named kaylee or kayla was in their congregation and did die that year though he wasn't aware of any special connection between debbie and that woman.

he said debbie was an extremely faithful parishoner and to have done something like this would mean she had experienced something absolutely devastating and he could never in a million years imagine her doing anything like that. i gave him her phone number and he was going to try to contact her immediately or find someone who knew her that could help her. he was very concerned and it was obvious he cared for her very deeply.

"kaycee" often mentions visiting children's cancer wards. i suspect that is where most of the gifts went. i think we should show some compassion. none of us can really imagine what drove her to this.
posted by centrs at 4:35 PM PST on May 20


All I know is that I just *feel bad* about this whole thing. I don't want to become hard or uncaring - tainted by this misrepresentation. I want to keep my propensity for feeling empathy intact. When I sent cards and notes to Kaycee, I was hurting for her and Debbie. I guess if there wasn't all that stuff about Kaycee's dad, aunt etc.... I wouldn't feel so manipulated, but I hate that I was made to feel so upset and frustrated by "Kaycee"'s father. Now I feel like someone was transefering their anger towards their husband and I was a hapless participant. I am also upset because BWG strikes me as the kind of guy who would be an ideal friend or older brother, and someone messed with him. In fact, someone was very, very reckless with the BWG - the world needs people like him and they should not be emotionally thrown about like that.
posted by Taxi at 4:36 PM PST on May 20


centrs -- thank you. That's the absolute best thing that someone could have done in this situation. I doubt that many of us really know Debbie well enough to know what kind of help she may or may not need.

On the issue of Debbie gaining from this -- I'm not convinced at all that she gained monetarily from this. From what I've heard, she sent at least as many packages as she received. How could this possibly be selfish? IMHO, that's a lot less likely than almost any other motive I can think of.
posted by tweebiscuit at 4:39 PM PST on May 20


So now the picture is a little clearer.

rebeccablood pointed out that the very first Kaycee page is in the same geocities directory as the Kelli's N'Sync page. Kelli was thought to have been Kaycee because of the similar stories in dates moving from Oklahoma to Kansas, the girl played basketball, and she had the same last name as Kaycee used when quoted in the New York Times, and her mom's name was Debbie (see the link on the page). Kelli was easily shown to not be Kaycee (see older thread), but I think this about nails it. So Debbie makes up Kaycee and has to fill about two years of blogging with personal details. Where do these details come from? Her own life. Kaycee moved when Debbie moved, Kaycee shared characteristics of Debbie's daughter, etc. Maybe the stuff about the parental relationships that Kaycee discussed are actually Debbie's. It is not hard at all to see where most of the details in the blog came from. Just look at the various Swenson family pages.

Now with the info posted provided from the church pastor, I think the whole thing is very clear. BWG was innocent and loving. He had nothing to do with it. The other pages predate his involvement and we know that Debbie really does exist. The stuff Kaycee said about her father fits in perfectly.

The only question is why did she carry on like this for so long? Sick, sick, sick...
posted by bonzo at 4:41 PM PST on May 20


Aaron, actually the Anandtech hoax took more than a year to unravel. "She" was "killed" in January of 2000, but the truth only came out about two weeks ago. The reason is that some people were suspicious, and others were coming to the defense of the hoaxster, and the subject just wouldn't die. And he was feeling guilt about misleading those people who were defending him, who were clearly good-hearted.

You'll pardon me for acting like a cynical bastard, but I wanted to mention when I started to doubt. I never heard of this until the "She's Dead" post last week, but I followed a link in there to Debbie's site and read her announcement of the death. Then I backed up one day and read the Mother's Day post.

And it just seemed too precious to me. It was about how grateful she was just to have her children near her, and how that was the best Mother's Day gift of all. It seemed tailor-made to create the greatest possible contrast to the announcement the next day that one of these beloved children had died. It was too poignant to be real, frankly. That kind of thing happens in soap operas and romance novels, but not in real life. I wouldn't have expected someone in real life to be that maudlin before a tragedy. (AFTER one, sure.)

I also confess to being a coward. This was my reaction last Tuesday when I first looked at her site, but I didn't say anything about it in public for fear of getting toasted yet again.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to express my enormous respect and gratitude to Acrid Rabbit for starting the first doubter thread. That took guts.

By the way, this is what I wrote this morning before I learned of confirmation of the hoax.

I still don't have any emotional attachment to this. About all I feel is bemused by it all. I can understand the anger, but I don't share it. Sorry, folks.

However, I'm also not contemptuous of the people who got emotionally involved with Kaycee Nicole. If you have to make a mistake, it's better to be too loving than not loving enough.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 4:42 PM PST on May 20


Danelope, Randall is a good person with a big heart who wanted to help someone he considered a friend.

1. Been the host, designer, and editor of "Kaycee" and "Debbie's" sites from the beginning.

Kaycee was a presence on the web before BWG got involved with her. She was part of College Club, as many can attest to. He didn't meet her until CitizenX started up. I've helped friends make web sites before. I've just not been generous enough to share my disk space with them. There's nothing notorious about Kaycee and Debbie's blogs being on his site.

2. Responded irrationally (and, perhaps, violently) when people first began to question the veracity of Kaycee's stories.

If you'd had a close friend accused of doing something wrong and you believed your friend was innocent, wouldn't you be upset and hostile towards those making accusations? I'd probably have been way more hostile and quite a bit more vulgar.

3. Posted an "I don't want to talk about it anymore" post on his weblog, which conveniently excuses him from any further discussion.

if you found out that you'd been lied to by someone you loved and trusted, and that you'd even been accused of being behind a scandal, wouldn't you want to step back and try to minimize the backlash, rather than be hounded and accused by people you don't even know? Man, I just posted a short entry to MY blog and I've already gotten harassing email from some moron.

Sure, his behaviour might seem like that of someone who's guilty of something, but it's also perfectly appropriate for someone who's been hurt, betrayed, and attacked publically. He's as much of a victim as anyone else who believed in Kaycee and her story, except that he's at ground zero.

I'm not at all happy with what's happened. I'm angry and upset and worried. I was 'duped.' I sent in cards and gifts. But I'm not going to track down Debbie. I'm not going to try to turn this into something criminal.

Can we please not turn this into a witch hunt?
posted by phichens at 4:45 PM PST on May 20


"the po box would have to be close to the person receiving the loot."

I had a PO box in the states for years, but did not live there. There are numerous mail forwarding agencies that allow one to set up an American address.
posted by kristin at 4:48 PM PST on May 20


That thought occurred to me and I doubt we're the only ones. But working alone with an IP in Hong Kong and a PO Box in Kansas? I can't get my head around that.

the email that matt got had an ip that linked back to a dialup in peabody, kansas. i honestly don't think that bwg got an account at an isp in the middle of nowhere and called long distance from hong kong to perpetuate this hoax. i think he was taken in by this scam more than anyone else.

here are my thoughts about the whole thing.
posted by sugarfish at 4:55 PM PST on May 20


How do we ensure that we don't lose our compassion for genuine people who need our support? Despite this situation, I am going to endeavour to be there for anyone who needs my energy - but I got over 50 people turned on to Living Colors, and I feel really humiliated. People at my office ask me about "Kaycee" all the time and I am now dreading going to work on Monday.
posted by sammchop at 4:56 PM PST on May 20


phichens: If you'd had a close friend accused of doing something wrong and you believed your friend was innocent, wouldn't you be upset and hostile towards those making accusations?

No.
posted by Danelope at 4:56 PM PST on May 20


Steven: again, thanks. But please note that I'm a coward too. I provide no email address in my profile - hence, I took very little risk in posting the initial thread.

I'm thinking that more of the respect & gratitude should be aimed at Headspace & the Wunderblogger, both of whom are wonderful women (who write really well) and have opened themselves up to a lot more consequences by writing their thoughts on their websites.
posted by acridrabbit at 4:58 PM PST on May 20


A lot of people are going to need a couple of days to get over this. I think we'll start seeing more rational discussion about this Tuesday or so. Be patient, people; something like this is a major blow for someone like BWG. He's got some anger and grief and self-recrimination to work through. Give him space and time.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 4:58 PM PST on May 20


Interesting situation... because I can understand from both sides of the viewpoint. You have people who have involved themselves in many different spectrums. I cannot say what is "right" or "wrong" but my main question is, "what will it do for you..."

I lived in North Point, Hong Kong for a while and met, hung out, even smoked cigars in Causeway Bay HK with BWG. There were no blips, IP addys, or emails, this was a one to one friendship. Where we practically hung out 5 days out of the week together since we both had a lot in common. We even trained together on my rooftop in martial arts while I was living there. So I can honestly tell you from a personal note... I know this guy really well.

One thing you have to remember is that this is a person. This person would give his shirt off of his back for someone whom he considers a 'friend'. I am not going to drag this post into the ground... but Randall was there for me in a lot of tough times when I lived in Hong Kong.

This same person voluntarily placed his life online, like a lot of other people. He even trusted someone to the point that he hosted their blog who we know as, "Kaycee". To me, there is nothing wrong with trusting someone. If I called him up and asked if he can host my site, he would do it with no questions asked. In genuine friendship, you don't have questionnaires, or checklists, or background checks... you simply trust someone's words.

I moved back to California to take care of my mother because she does have cancer. In fact I had to rush her to the hospital for an surgical emergency. I have to deal with the thoughts of possibly losing a loved one day after day. Likewise, Randall has gone though it in his own personal life... you can see it when he talked about it.

So can you imagine building a friendship online, caring for them, building a friendship, then share their life online with others. Then go though the thought of loss, and have all your emotions from losing family members in the past swell up too? Then find out that this person might not be real, and now you have to slap your reputation online and practically apologize to the world because you trusted someone? That is a hard one to swallow... but he did it.

So if it makes you feel better to run WHOIS commands, search though obituaries, and run this online-witch-hunt to make yourself feel better. Mabye it will... mabye it won't. I don't have the right to judge or sway someone. But all I know is that it was wonderful to look through the eyes of not only Kaycee, but several other people that have written about their lives...and really appreciate the fact that we're all alive, and ya... living on borrowed time. I'm off to the hospital right now in fact, so if you can... do keep a good thought in your mind for my Mother or anyone who is going through those hard times in life.

Best wishes to everybody on this board...
~Robert
posted by robomonkey at 4:59 PM PST on May 20


[Danelope: For the record, wrt Zannah, I wasn't trying to create a brushfire or anything. I was simply pointing out that if one comes into a situation with no information, and the snippet provided is all that person's got, confusion and/or problems will result.]
posted by hijinx at 5:00 PM PST on May 20


si monumentum requiris, circumspice
posted by n/a at 5:09 PM PST on May 20


aaron: Know you wrote this a long time ago, but . . . If liberals believed in the inherent goodness of people, in blind Rousseauesque fashion, we wouldn't have wage and hour laws or OSHA or the National Commission on Race. We wouldn't have hate crime laws. Same goes with conservatives, only in reverse. What a crock. Now back to your usual programming.
posted by raysmj at 5:11 PM PST on May 20


Or, rather, the inherent total goodness of people. Sorry.
posted by raysmj at 5:12 PM PST on May 20


i never met Kaycee IRL. I met her just like Halcyon and many others did, at Collegeclub.com. I heard her voice, i recieved snail mail, i got a pkg from her. I talked to *Debbie* too.
The girl i met online was sweet, giving, caring. For nearly two years i called her *lil sis*.
I know they always warn you not to trust too much when u *meet* people online. But like BWG said, how could i not trust? this person was my friend. she never asked anything from me, and i can vouch for the fact that she actually gave $ to others.
I wont lie, after i read the post BWG made, i was shocked, angered and sad. But if *Debbie* is truly sorry, and if a real girl did die, and if that real girl was the one who shared so much love and caring, then i think thats whats important. So yeah, we were faked, we were all rooting for a person that was actually a combination of many people.
I know many people from Collegeclub who were deeply saddened by what happpened. I personally sent out emails to close friends announcing her death. *sigh*
The *Kaycee* might not be real, but the love and suffering are always true.
Maybe all that is hurt is our egos, for having believed and now we are being told it all was, but not really.
Im saddened by the fact that a girl lost her life, i feel angry that i was lied to, but most of all i feel that i was part of a story, fiction or fact, that has made me appreciate my life mor