I think it’s time for me to come clean about this. I kinda became addicted to Reddit, but most importantly, reddit stories. It became part of my routine to listen to podcasts that read reddit stories. NGL it’s really enjoyable, but there is always some people that debates if the stories are true.
Then I tried it once. I created a throwaway account and posted a made up story. It gained a lot of traction and nobody even commented about it being fake.
It was supposed to be a one time thing, but then another idea for a story pops up in my head, I create another throwaway with a temp mail and write that another story.
Overtime it became a habit. I’ve posted tens of fake stories, maybe over a hundred. With updates even. I also learned to develop different styles of writing and formatting so people wouldn’t notice they were written by the same person, me.
Some of my stories got into the podcasts I listen to daily. Its always exciting to hear my own stories being read by someone else.
But I realize that this is not healthy anymore. I could develop so many of these stories into short stories or novels. I’ve learned a lot and improved my writing, these are compelling, engaging, even gut-wrenching stories that I think people would like to read if they were books.
It’s time for me to stop this and start writing fiction for real.
Another reason why I should quit it, it’s because I fucking hate the mods, some of my best stories has been deleted for bullshit reasons, or I just can’t find the right sub to post them. But I gotta say, engaging with people in real time is part of the fun of it.
I don’t want you to think everything on reddit is fake, and I don’t care if some posts are fake or not, I have so many fucked up real stories in my family that no reddit story ever even came close to be as fucked up as real life and would be tossed aside as fake instantly. Reality is weirder than fiction.
Thanks for reading my confession. I’ll go out, touch grass, and start writing fiction.
BTW, I only post fake shit on Throwaway accounts, I’ve never done that on my real main account, and I never lie IRL. Maybe that’s why it felt so exciting early on.
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Nice story bro, but I know this is fake as shit. You only wrote fake stories once here. This one. Can’t fool me.
Honestly good on ya mate. Creative writing can be a fantastic outlet and you should absolutely start trying to write short stories.
yeah, who woulld do that? lol
We’ve found them. The AmITheAsshole submitter.
You got me. I am actually the real account for all of this. I thought I would make a fictional post explaining that all my stories were fictional, but they were all actually real. I hope we can start a blank slate from now on. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to come clean. I am not actually the person with the original account making a fictional account to explain my real stories that turned out to be fictional but are actually real (but in reality aren’t). I am the former /r/jailbait moderator Spez.
Plot twist: All of this is made up.
I start under the assumption that every reddit post is 100% fiction and work from there. Especially on subs like TIFU or Amitheasshole.
Would be fucking great if we could not do that, though.
That’s why I blocked those subs, they’re all fake or just people looking for validation
There’s a lot of people that are desperate for attention and validation and the karma system becomes really addictive to them.
I had a lot of contentious exchanges with one person, supposedly a lady, that had to insert herself in every conversation in the sub, screech wildly about anything that went against her progressive ideas, even if it was inoffensive, instigate dumb debates and then accuse people of creating strawmen or sealioning, and somehow found a way to pretend to be a victim every single time. If a post mentioned the holocaust - her husband’s father is a holocaust survivor. If someone mentioned sexual abuse, she was a victim of rape. If there was a mention of a kidnapping, she was kidnapped at 16. If someone discussed a murder, her best friend was brutally murdered before her eyes, etc. It got ridiculous when some medical subject came up and then apparently she’s a doctor with 20 years of experience in exactly that subject and who teaches on that subject at a prestigious medical school. I have no idea how such a doctor can spend 20 hours a day on reddit and get 120k posts in a few years, but maybe that’s just me. And I’m pretty sure she had several alts because her comments would be immediately upvoted and any dissenting viewpoint downvoted to oblivion. A few of the posters also had the exact same writing style and used the same arguments, which of course they justified as “great minds think alike” and “that’s because you’re wrong, bigot”. If she was ever genuinely downvoted, she’d immediately complain.
It really sucked the life out of the sub. And there are tons of people just like her on many subs.
I have only see the ones on r/all and I once saw a post on AITA, where it was not obvious whos fault it was. The rest were just, as you said, people looking for validation.
I always felt the rise of fake stories came with the change to karma for text posts. It used to be that a text post gave no karma and so there was no incentive to karma farm that way. Once the change happened, many text-based subreddits had their quality drop dramatically.
Did you post to r/amitheasshole? I used to love that one
r/amItheangel was a good satirical poke at r/aita posts.
I’m glad you’re coming clean. I kinda hope that you go back and delete the fake stories, or at least make clear they’re works of fiction.
Why?
Because people are stupid. They hear an urban legend about a psycopath putting razor blades in apples and all of a sudden no one can have anything but individually wrapped candy during halloween. People overemphasize anectodes to establish political views or actually make policy changes. Academics troll reddit for evidence to support theories. And “news” “reporters” pull stuff from Reddit and report it, often as fact. If it implicates criminal activity or child abuse, that might cause authorities to get involved needlessly.
Maybe your stories aren’t such that they would impact policies, or change political views, or impact lives. I’m sure some of it is just harmless fun (though, when I’d participate in forums like AITA with fake posts, it sure did annoyme), and to some extent, people should be smarter about responding to shitposts. “Throwaway because my friends know my main account” should be a big, red flag. And I’m glad you got to work on your writing skill and voice. I hope you can use it productively in the future, and I wish you the best of luck. (But think about deleting or editing your posts!)
I think there’s something deeper about why people believe. It’s not that they can’t tell fact from fiction, at least not entirely. Quite often, the stories they believe are the ones that reinforce their existing worldview. This is especially true in the realm of politics, but applies to more mundane situations as well.
The people that believe the razer blade in apples story are usually the ones afraid of strangers. But sometimes their memory confuses events and stories, or details get lost. Other times, it’s bad journalism, or public figures trying to make a name for themselves. Bad information, whether malicious or benign, is hard to remove, both from a person and from society in general.
The NY Times, October 28 1970, published the razer blades story. It was full of confidence and input from respectable and trustworthy authorities. It wasn’t until many years later that anyone investigated it, and found it to be total bullshit.
Idk, I understand what you mean but seriously if you’re a police officer/journalist/academic, you should NOT be taking seriously what someone wrote totally anonymously with 0 evidence beyond the text to back it up. When the Daily Fail organizes their fascist reader base on a crusade based on an anonymous Reddit post (idk if it’s ever happened, probably), that’s not the posters fault.
I don’t disagree, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t do it.
There are tons of “journalists” on sites like Yahoo that simply troll Reddit’s popular subs for content and repost controversial statements/opinions for clicks. That’s an easy way that hoaxes spread.
Of course, the police aren’t going to go arrest someone based on an anonymous post, but it might raise suspicion and/or cause an unwarranted investigation.
And yes, I do believe that if someone publishes something online, they have some level of responsibility for what they post, subject to the protections of the First Amendment (and similar doctrines in other countries). “I get to say what I want and don’t have any responsibility for the consequences” leads to (a) potentially dangerous situations, and (b) really shitty content.
Any specific sagas you want to admit to? Im legit curious now, lol.
And the saga of the mom who didn’t let her teenage daughter hang out with her older friends, but I can’t find that one right now.
Oh shit, i think the Jessica rabbit one was on BORU!
No one’s gonna mention the fact that you made a new temp email for each account when you can just sign up without an email?
Just buy a domain and have unlimited emails forward to your main email
But it needs email verification.
you can just click next and skip it
What does? I’ve been using Reddit for years and never input any emails. On the sign up page where it asks for an email you just click next and it doesn’t care.
I can’t believe somebody lied on the internet :(
What kind of stories did you submit? I spent way too much time on BestofRedditorUpdates and at least half of the time you spend realizing stories are fake. I’m wondering if I read any of yours
Only 2 of my stories got into BORU and both are kinda recent.
IF you ever wanna totally come clean, you should share which stories specifically you shared. I’m curious to see if people caught on they were fake or not and how
Okay I definitely read the Jessica Rabbit one before! That’s so crazy.
I always assumed that nearly everything on BORU was a creative writing exercise. Thanks for validating my suspicions
Don’t worry about it. I always assume reddit stories are fake anyway.
It’s like wow what a surprise that shit like: “AITA: I slept with my sister’s boyfriend” was fake (Before they banned quasi porn submissions, lol)
Seems fake.
I’ve always wondered about that. I wonder what portion of Reddit stories are creative writing exercises. Could we make a community here for fictional stories set irl?
Would be nice to have a community like that here on lemmy for creative writing, there I could just write and post my future stories.
I’m having trouble accessing that from lemmy.world. I was wondering if lemmy.world isn’t federated with that or however you say it, but I can access other lemmy.ml communities. Any idea what I’m doing wrong?
I don’t really know. Maybe give it a few hours until it properly federates?
I’d guess even if it’s not that many of the total, most of the highly upvoted stories I expect to be fake.
If you’re writing fiction, you don’t have to have something interesting actually happen to you, you can just write whatever you want, and make it as dramatic as you want. Huge advantage over true stories.
wow, holy shit that’s kind of a lot
good job on realizing that you had an issue and endeavoring to touch grass more often
good luck on your writing endeavors OP
