The TC article made her look like a scheming fraudster, but this deeper dive makes it sound like she has some serious mental/emotional issues. Perhaps it's time to stop tweeting hate messages at her, and time to persuade her to sit down with someone and talk through her mental state.
Interesting that the TC article made no mention of her living with a TC employee, however.
It's all seeming a bit overblown though, no? Like someone is butthurt over it and they're going to tear her down no matter what. Was there even any real harm from her actions?
I think that's it. I think it's embarrassment on behalf of the media folks who should have known better but who were duped. A lot of the journalists in the space enjoy the feeling of being on friendly terms and hanging out with the movers and shakers in the industry. It's understandable I suppose. They're only human. So there's a heavy internal bias towards believing you're special and these people want to hang out with you, rather than here's a phony trying to leach off you.
Right. This person seems to have some serious issues and needs to get help. Any legal issues (fraud) should be dealt with by authorities and I'm not sure there's much benefit in creating a circus around a young person making mistakes, and possibly committing credit card fraud.
But it does seem clearer now why TechCrunch seems to have taken it all so personally. Sounds like they were among those fooled. It really should have been mentioned in the original article that she lived with a TechCruncher. Would have made the personal animosity more transparent. They're obviously embarrassed and lashing out.
However you only have yourself to blame when you fall for easily-fact-checkable lies. If any group has the collective rolodex to make a couple of calls and authenticate the veracity of such claims it's TC.
Indeed. But I've ranted elsewhere at my distress as someone who's been in Silicon Valley for more than a decade now, at the deteriorating state of industry media coverage and its descent in certain quarters towards soap opera status. Too many posts where the journalists make themselves the story, too much loss of objectivity.
People say "well Arrington did it", but I don't think he did. He was genuinely well connected from a long time in the valley. He was genuinely a trusted source. So his posts had insight and were very well written. Not right 100% of the time, in the opinions of many, I'm sure, but who is?
The gossipy nature is distressing. The Twitter squabbles between rival publications are often childish and unnecessary. But there are folks out there trying to build quality alternatives and I have no doubt that things will get better for industry coverage. That in itself may push TC back to quality - let's face it they still run great events and have a loud megaphone in the industry. Swapping that for TMZ-style pageview grasps sounds like an inferior business strategy for the long haul.
At least since the acquisition I've been saying that TC is (or had become) the TMZ of tech. There is nothing inherently valuable about their coverage, especially these days, and their position as vaunted tech journalists seems to me to be a case of a cultural Sunk-Cost Fallacy, Status Quo, or however you view the hope that past returns are an indicator of future performance.
I don't know why, I do know that confidence people use the technique of telling a lie that would be trivial to cross check because it shows authority. The way it works on the human brain is that if you just said something that is something is true, that a simple fact check would prove you to be a liar, and nobody wants to be a liar, thus I can be confident what you said actually is true because it would be stupid to lie about something I could so easily verify. Oh and I won't verify it right now because I'll feel stupid if it is true.
Now people do go off to get a drink or use the facilities and do a quick check on their smartphone :-) And I know I tend to get snarky with folks who lie to me if I'm aware and not minding my manners (its a weakness I am working on).
This story reflects a much more troubled person. Hope she can work it out before it consumes her.
She clearly has deep-seated psychological issues. Her behavior reminds me of another impostor, Azia Kim, who fooled her parents that she was accepted into Stanford a few years back.
She packed up her things and went to Stanford.
She subsequently enrolled in NJROTC at Santa Clara University to explain why there were no tuition bills.
Once at Stanford, she fooled a couple RAs and students to crash for 8 months in a dorm.
What is most intriguing about impostors is the need to build lie upon lie. Forge a Stanford report card to enroll at Santa Clara? Sure.
Photoshop your head into a photo with a celebrity? Yes, I think I can get away with it.
I'm not sure if it can be said they're pathological liars, or they get so wrapped up in their lies they must continue the farce.
Edit: of course, it should be noted that stealing is an unrelated (yet still serious) issue. That just makes her a really awful person. A really awful person who needs help.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 50.3 ms ] threadInteresting that the TC article made no mention of her living with a TC employee, however.
But it does seem clearer now why TechCrunch seems to have taken it all so personally. Sounds like they were among those fooled. It really should have been mentioned in the original article that she lived with a TechCruncher. Would have made the personal animosity more transparent. They're obviously embarrassed and lashing out.
However you only have yourself to blame when you fall for easily-fact-checkable lies. If any group has the collective rolodex to make a couple of calls and authenticate the veracity of such claims it's TC.
Consider the source.
People say "well Arrington did it", but I don't think he did. He was genuinely well connected from a long time in the valley. He was genuinely a trusted source. So his posts had insight and were very well written. Not right 100% of the time, in the opinions of many, I'm sure, but who is?
The gossipy nature is distressing. The Twitter squabbles between rival publications are often childish and unnecessary. But there are folks out there trying to build quality alternatives and I have no doubt that things will get better for industry coverage. That in itself may push TC back to quality - let's face it they still run great events and have a loud megaphone in the industry. Swapping that for TMZ-style pageview grasps sounds like an inferior business strategy for the long haul.
Seriously? WHY? That's one of the easiest facts to check.
Now people do go off to get a drink or use the facilities and do a quick check on their smartphone :-) And I know I tend to get snarky with folks who lie to me if I'm aware and not minding my manners (its a weakness I am working on).
This story reflects a much more troubled person. Hope she can work it out before it consumes her.
She packed up her things and went to Stanford.
She subsequently enrolled in NJROTC at Santa Clara University to explain why there were no tuition bills.
Once at Stanford, she fooled a couple RAs and students to crash for 8 months in a dorm.
What is most intriguing about impostors is the need to build lie upon lie. Forge a Stanford report card to enroll at Santa Clara? Sure.
Photoshop your head into a photo with a celebrity? Yes, I think I can get away with it.
I'm not sure if it can be said they're pathological liars, or they get so wrapped up in their lies they must continue the farce.
Edit: of course, it should be noted that stealing is an unrelated (yet still serious) issue. That just makes her a really awful person. A really awful person who needs help.