*Let me make it very clear, my rant today is about my views in general. I will not tolerate bashing anyone. Comments regarding the situation referenced need to be in a respectful format, whether you agree or not. Anything to the contrary will be deleted.*
Many of you may have heard of the recent scandal to blow thru the blogosphere. If you haven’t here is a quick summation.
- Blog named Coopers Corridor was about a gay firefighter with adopted kids blogging about the challenges and joys of raising children as a gay man.
- Blog owner ends blog after a vicious attack by email/posts.
- Blogosphere expresses outrage over the attacks.
- Blog turns out to be completely false. Cooper is not a gay man but in fact a person claiming to be transgendered. Children are non-existent. Huge chunks of the blog came from another woman’s blog about her children.
All caught up? Good, moving on. While not overly involved in this latest incident, I have fallen prey to such antics in the past. [1]I’m sure you long time readers know exactly what I’m referring to. I’ve also seen innocent people get drawn into said fallouts. People who were often innocent bystanders and who were so dismayed by the downright nastiness of others, they gave up blogging all together. Hell, I’ve even been accused of being a fake myself. [2]The pesky hundreds of bloggers who have met me sort of dispelled that rumor. heehee
"Cooper" and I had a very brief interaction prior to his/her blog becoming about the supposed children. Said person spoke of some personal things from his/her childhood that related to some of my own struggles. I offered my heart-felt advice and support. That was pretty much the end of any personal interaction. I didn’t regret the advice then and I don’t know. Maybe in a twisted way it was true but just not in the fashion presented.
I readily admit I didn’t follow the blog daily as I found it too soft. I hate to say it but it bored me. I felt a little guilty because I always thought it was just too sensitive. In hindsight, I know why now. That said, I really respected the person and thought a lot of his abilities and thoughts as a father. I linked to him/her to allow others to discover his charm. To discover it was a total fraud disturbs me. But frankly, I haven’t lost any sleep over it.
As I commented on joe.my.god’s blog, my granny always said, "believe none of what you hear and half of what you see". An adage that is becoming more and more relevant to me every day. I can be a very trusting person but life has taught me to be a realist as well. I will be kind, thoughtful, and respectful to everyone until given a reason not to.
This latest revelation hasn’t "shaken my foundation" in blogging or any other such drama. I’ve made some great friends thru blogging. I continue do so every year. As with anything, there is some expectation of the negative. As I’ve said before, I’ll forgo the righteous indignation. My life is far from perfect. I’m sorry to discover he/she was a fake but it doesn’t really change my views on blogging, the web, or the world. If anything it reaffirms them.
What say you?
its kind of like watching reality TV. do you really believe that these people arent ‘acting’ when they have cameras following them around all the time?
I didn’t read that particular blog (mainly because I didn’t think it was real). What really amused me was that two of the most nefarious of the fake bloggers left comments describing their horror at the situation.
I never read the blog either but it does raise so many questions on who/what we choose to believe and why. I wrote a long post on this. I won’t plug up your comments section. If interested, pop over and read it at
http://y-oh-y.blogspot.com/2008/07/i-blog-therefore-i-am.html
Moby, I understand if you don’t want people leaving your site from a commenter’s comment so I’ll understand if you don’t post/delete this!
@Gavin I never mind bloggers linking away to read others. My only request, as always, is that folks not go on a personal attacks. Even when we disagree we can be respectful. You always meet that criteria.
I’ve read this blog for about a year now, but I would never assume to know you, Moby. Nor would I assume to know anything about other people just based on what I read on their blogs, twitter, FB or MySpace profiles, etc. Even when people want to share everything about their lives (and most don’t for good reason), there’s no way they can effectively do so just by blogging or using other tools on the web.
More to the point, there’s no reason to believe anything people share on the internet, much less the intimate details of their lives, simply because they took the time to write them down. I thought other people took this admittedly cynical approach to the web as well so it surprises me that people felt so betrayed by someone they never met. Yes, Cooper had a compelling story, but the outrage over someone that, in essence, was a complete stranger baffles me.
As I said, I’ve been reading your blog for about a year. A few weeks ago, you off-handedly mentioned in a post that Moby wasn’t your real name. I’m guessing you don’t use your real name because you want to protect your privacy. Whatever the reason, it really doesn’t affect me one way or the other. I feel the same way about Cooper. With the exception of the one guy that went to meet him (Patrick?), I don’t see how anyone really lost something when Cooper was revealed as a fraud. After the initial shock, what’s left to sustain the outrage?
I would have to say neither victim nor fraud. Just sad that’s what we deal with in this crazy world. But horribly creative (even though it was a lie). I mean, who doesn’t love a good novel ?? And I’d swear you’ve been watching too much Bill O’Reilly (“What say you”??)
@Lewis Good lawd. Does he say that? I’ll have to stop saying it then. Ugh. lol
I didn’t even know of it’s existence until someone mentioned it on twitter (could’ve been you, don’t recall exactly) after it had been exposed as a lie. I google’d it and spotted JMG’s entry and got caught up there.
Personally, it’s too bad that someone’s gotta do that. Yeah, it’s like reading a novel but with a book, you know already it’s fake. Anyway, I’m not soured on blogging. I mean ANYone whose dealt with the internet for any length of time should be aware that it, like offline life, has it’s dark side/pitfalls.
Besides, I know yer really homer! ::ewg::
I say “meh”. Who the fuck cares? I never read the type of blogs that seem to focus on this shit. And even though I always accept what people tell me is the truth (until proven otherwise) I have the strong belief that all online personas have a whiff of a lie about them.
I never read that one, but felt burned by the “bent collective” brouhaha of a few years ago. Wonder if they’ll be a psychiatric diagnosis for this phenomenon in a few years…maybe an M.P.D. thing.
I think I might have read it once or twice. I too thought it was a bit too flowery for my taste. I was amazed at the readership it had and often wondered how one generates that kind of following so quickly. I will say however that since I blogged about it it has increased my readership immensely which is a great thing as far as I am concerned.