Decepticons

So, apparently there is another Transformers movie out, and this time they dumped Megan Fox and went with a Victoria's Secret model. I have nothing against Victoria's Secret models, but to be totally honest I can't stomach those lame-ass movies without Megan Fox to drool over. So let's talk about something else. Let's talk about Decepticons.

Earlier this week I received an email from someone saying, "did you hear about Spiky Zora Jones? She's a total fake, just like that Steph girl from Much Ado was."

Here is what I have heard and what I know:

Some time ago, a blogger called Hunii claimed to have terminal cancer. She wrote eloquently about her struggles with cancer and basically blogged her own death. A lot of bloggers, including the famous Steph of Much Ado, were very upset, believing a friend they knew only through The Blog had died.

Meanwhile, Steph of Much Ado decided to stop using photos of herself and her friends, and just use photos of an American internet model named Staci Cole instead. On her blog she technically never said "this is me" but privately, whenever anyone asked her for a real photo of herself without the trademark black rectangle over her eyes she'd send a photo of Staci Cole.

And then Steph discovered Spiky, and realized that Spiky was actually the same blogger who called herself Hunii. Whatever was said between them about this, or what went on privately, I have no idea. Steph later said something along the lines that she wanted to write a total shred post about what Hunii/Spiky had done and how wrong it was, but by this time Steph was not only feeling guilty about her own new deception with the photos on her own blog, but also her new Facebook account in which she had invited numerous popular bloggers to friend her and then filled her photo albums with more Staci Cole photos. She was caught in a dilemma - how can she be outraged at Hunii/Spiky when she was now doing something similar herself? She couldn't justify it, so she kept her mouth shut, and soon after closed her own blog, ending her blog deception, but not admitting what she'd done.

A year later, Arna, also known as Breastesses, if I remember correctly, discovered the real Staci Cole. She was angry because she had sent Steph $1000 worth of jewelrey to try to market for her in Sydney and Melbourne. She wasn't sure if the real Steph was anything she'd claimed to be and perhaps had stolen her jewelry with false pretenses. She contacted Fingers, who blogged a big expose of Steph/Staci Cole and turned The Blog upside down in the process.

Steph owned up to what she'd done, but by that point it was like a forest fire, with so much smoke and flames that no one was rational enough to listen anymore. Arna asked for her jewelry back. Steph promptly sent it to her along with an apology. Steph then deleted her Facebook profile, set her blog to private, and left The Blog once and for all, much to the regret of a great many bloggers who greatly enjoyed her witty and friendly comments on their own blogs.

From that point on, the most sociable of bloggers was Spiky Zora Jones. Like Steph, Spiky visited and commented on the blogs of anyone who read her blog, or was in her blogroll, and a great many other blogs as well. She was known for being almost as friendly as Steph, even if she occasionally and inexplicably went off on people which Steph had rarely done. Spiky was nice to a wide circle of friends, and greatly appreciated.

And then late one night, unable to sleep, Cath Smack was up late watching television and just happened to see a famous performer named Storm Large on The Ellen Show. She noticed that Storm Large was the same person she saw in photos on Spiky Zora Jones' blog. Thinking Spiky was Storm, she contacted Storm Large. Storm responded, and was shocked to learn that there was a popular blog using her photos and her life and career.

Since Storm Large discovered the rather elaborate fraud, Spiky Zora Jones' blog has been taken down. Her Facebook profile has also apparently been deleted, perhaps by Facebook itself at the request of Storm Large's lawyers who appear to be responsible for the rather rapid deletion of Spiky's blog.


Storm Large

Now the discussion seems to be whether or not we can equate Steph's deception with Spiky's.

I say no, we cannot. I was reading Steph's blog back before she ever used a single Staci Cole photo. I remember when her photos were of herself and her friends. The first one didn't even have her patented black rectangle over her eyes. It was just her arm, which she lay across her eyes so that we wouldn't see her whole face in the photo. From there she slowly adopted the black rectangle, and more than a year later, the first Staci Cole photo appeared. Nowhere on her blog did she say that the photos of Staci Cole were of her. It was the later deceptions, the private emails and the Facebook profile, that truly made people feel lied to. The photos had nothing to do with Steph's blog posts and her stories. They were simply photographic embellishment.

For the record, none of the photos currently on my blog in which a face can be seen are of me. And that includes my profile photo. Over the many years this blog has existed, I have had only 2 profile photos. One was of a woman with her pants down mooning the camera. The other was the current photo, the naked man on the toilet by the roadside. Neither is me.

Now, as for Spiky's deception, it is a bit different. Spiky didn't just slowly use more and more of Storm Large's photos in place of her own. She also seems to have used Storm Large's career and life as her own, claiming to have performed shows that Storm Large actually performed.

Think about it for a moment. When the Staci Cole photos were discovered, did anyone mistakenly believe that Steph was actually Staci Cole, an American model from Pittsburg? No, there was nothing about Steph's blog implying that she was ever a model from anywhere, let alone the United States. But when Cath Smack discovered Storm Large, she actually thought, based on what Spiky had written, that Storm and Spiky were one and the same. Say what you will about Cath Smack, and I've certainly had my differences with her, but she is not particularly stupid. It wasn't low intelligence that led her to mistake the real Storm Large for blogger Spiky Zora Jones. No, it was Spiky and her blog that created this confusion. And it seems to have been intended to do so. So no, I don't think we can compare and equate the two deceptions.

Making matters worse is the fact that whomever the person behind the Spiky Zora Jones blog is, they did this before with another blog, deceiving people and essentially playing with their emotions without any hint of guilt that we know of. It is almost as if this person, whomever they may be, is simply using The Blog as a tool for creating characters and writing from their perspective, like some neverending creative writing exercise at our expense. It's cold. And it's disturbing.

When Steph was blogging still, her blog was THE place to be. You could hang out in her comments and have an ongoing conversation with people you met there. The comments were often every bit as entertaining as the blog itself. It was like a bar we all hung out at and had a big party day after day. When Steph's blog closed, it was the end of something unlike anything else I have ever encountered on any blog anywhere. And Steph was very generous with taking the time to visit each and every blogger who visited her. She read every word that we wrote and commented on it. Sometimes her comments were along the lines of "Steve, you are a great big dribbling cunt," but mostly and with most other bloggers she was very friendly and funny. People absolutely adored Steph because she earned it and she deserved it. The Staci Cole photos no doubt added sex appeal and brought in more blog fans, but even before those she was a giant on The Blog.

When Spiky was blogging, she seemed to find the time to go around and visit everyone, too, just like Steph had done. She would leave mostly very funny and friendly comments, except with me sometimes she would say things like "Steve, you mother fucking conservative asshole, you suck." Mostly, though, she was very friendly and we appreciated having her around.

There seem to be fewer blogs every day. Losing Steph's blog was a huge blow. It's a shame that she had already made up her mind to end her blog before the fake photos were discovered, or else I'm fairly certain she would have owned up to it (which she did) and then gone on writing without the Staci Cole photos and still remained the most popular blogger in all of Australia. As it is, she had already closed her blog for reasons which had little to do with Staci Cole and it is unlikely that anything is going to change her mind about that now. Losing Spiky's blog, I don't know what to say because it seems that we truly don't know what was real in what she wrote - what, if anything, we can believe. But we have still lost her comments and her visits and that is a genuine loss to all of us.

I don't know what to say in conclusion about the deception of Hunii and then again as Spiky Zora Jones. One person, and we have no idea who, deceived us twice, and in a big, big way. Some bloggers are suggesting that there is likely mental illness involved in this. Perhaps so. Or perhaps this person, whomever they are, simply enjoys creating characters on the internet and seeing how far they can go with them. I don't know. I only know that The Blog feels a little darker after this and a little less fun.



UPDATE: My information about the blogger Hunni (Huni?) being the same blogger as Spiky Zora Jones may be totally incorrect. It was Huni/Hunni that Steph of Much Ado discovered alive and well after having faked her own death, and felt outraged at, only to let it slide over her own feelings of guilt for deceiving readers with Staci Cole photos.

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