Micky Says… twitter friends?
Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 11:32AM Micky Says… twitter friends?
When twitter started I wasn’t interested at first. Another way to communicate?
I already have to update my website, blog and facebook accounts, read my e-mails and maybe answer them. Then there is my agenda, in writing (I still have one of those big file-o-fax things, black leather, smells great and I just can’t part from it) Then I have my ical, iphone and MacBook to handle. My photo camera and video camera, my alarm….
Pff no! Not one more!
But my fiancée asserted that I could not go to the new decade without it and I listened. Again. :-)
At first it felt very strange to just share my thoughts with complete strangers, and living in the public eye I could not imagine it was going to benefit me to share my location or whereabouts.
But then slowly, I got in to it.
It felt like I was sending out messages to God (or whatever you want to call it). My mother passed away and at the time I felt I had a life-line with her through my twitter account. She didn't respond through twitter of course, she responds through different media. :-)
People started to follow me (again, a strange phenomenon to me at the time). I became tweet friends with total strangers. Last month one of them got sick. Very sick. She sent me a DM telling me about her situation. She had a tumor in her head and was about to go into surgery.
And right then and there I found the true value of twitter. I had made a friend, someone I have never seen but who touched my heart with her funny one-liners, her passion for sports and her total support of my tweets for about six months so far.
I prayed for her every day and just hoped she would get back to her twittering soon.
---------------------------
This is where I left off writing this blog. I had to take a trip to Amsterdam. I didn't want to post it because I hadn't heard from my tweet friend for two days and I was worried she had passed. Arriving in Amsterdam I discovered through a journalist that this twitter "friend" was a hoax. It turned out to be a woman in the south of Holland with about 5000 followers. She apparently told all of them about her cancer and they all believed her, including Lance Armstrong. He even sent her a video message to support her fight.
The weird thing is that she never asked for money, her tweets where funny and accurate, she even had her so called family send me a long e-mails about her situation.
I’m still not sure how I feel about this. I was disappointed and felt really stupid.
And then I felt this empty spot in my heart for someone that wasn’ t even real.
This morning the package with some soap, lip balm and a card that I sent to her at the cancer Institute arrived. 'Return To Sender'.
How low can people go? Using cancer is such a sick thing to do.
What motivates a person to do this?
Is she that lonely that she needs this attention?
Is she a really good fraudster that wanted to investigate how far she could go?
Is she writing a book on the psychological behavior of people in the cyber age?
In reality she turned out to be a woman about my age, who allegedly defrauded renters of vacation homes and had this as a project on the side. She was arrested the day that she stopped twittering, the day I thought she had passed.
She told the officers she felt sorry for all the consternation she had caused.
Why would you want to use an illness like cancer to get attention? Why would you want to be a part of making people even more afraid of fakes and frauds in a world where every kind word is already put on a scale of thruth?
Trust is a beautiful thing if not abused. The moment you abuse it in such an aggregious way, it has more consequences than you might think. The fear spreads; more people become suspicious about the sincerity of others.
I'll try to stay positive. I'll try to keep on trusting.
I will try. But I've been warned.
Reader Comments (2)
Twitter, facebook, hyves, msn and what els have we got? A brilliant idea or a dangerous medium? It can be an addiction, one way to keep you up 2 date and to contact those you see too little. It will bring the distance a bit closer so your feeling less alone.
People like the lady you call ruin confidence in humanity, they deceive you it's here way of getting attention.
Very sad but unfortunately the truth.
So I search for months for a child like mine one with exactly the same chromosome abnormality, he has a very rare his future is uncertain and he's is our major concern now! The World wide web is a must for us without it we did'nt find a specialist in the U.S.A.who could help us.
I will spare you the details but how can you spot the life of yourself or others, you should be ashamed and hopefully there comes a moment where you feel what it's like to have 5000 so called 'friends' And still feeling alone.....
Joyce
Wow, I did read the entire communication about this woman on Twitter a while back...I think her name was Ines/z? I even googled her to see where in my non-sportive life I missed out on this champion lady....I even wondered how she got through this coma and so on...well apparently she got busted. Not weird that you believed this story, it even got me interested and switching from one twitter account to another twitter account to see what was up with her, so I dont blame you for sympathizing.....Although Micky ( I did register on your website so maybe that means we are webfriends and I can call you Micky and get personal :-) ) YOU of all people should have learned by now not to trust anyone easily, especially on the web.
Facebook/Twitter/ Hyves..... I still prefer saving time for real life conversations, interactions and laughs. See peoples expressions and see peoples eyes, cause they tell the thruth.
Im not offending you in any way, but you falling for this only makes me realize more how "dangerous" and misleading these web's communities are, especially for younger guys and dolls.
So no....I wouldnt call them your Twitter FRIENDS
Definition:
"friend - a person you know well and regard with affection and trust" Dus..........
On the other hand, I think its fabulous that you cared...Keep the faith :-)
IAmsterdam