Literature by Committee.

April 16, 2011 6:26 PM

Do you know of any high end forum or blog threads which have started with a controversial but lucid OP (original post) and over a large number of comments the OP'er has proven him/herself to be totally and wickedly dishonest and possibly insane.

I stumbled upon one today and I could not stop reading it. It was (to me) some new and wonderful literary form. I'm looking for a slow, merciless and intelligent exposing of a fraud perpetrator, character assassin or someone with a nasty personal or professional agenda.
Famous flame wars are not really what I'm looking for (though that might also be fun).

posted by Pennyblack to Human Relations (23 answers total)

Could you link to the example you mention?
posted by meadowlark lime at 6:30 PM on April 16, 2011

I think Mencius Moldbug is what you're looking for. It starts with a very wordy and iconoclastic analysis of democracy and just goes completely batshitinsane from there, yet always maintains this "duh, obviously" tone of self-confidence.

It's been going on for years, and Mencius shows no propensity to slow down.
posted by fatbird at 6:33 PM on April 16, 2011

Would the Givewell incident here on Metafilter be the kind of thing you're looking for?
posted by Clandestine Outlawry at 6:39 PM on April 16, 2011

Yeah, it would be pretty cool of you to give us a link to your own example of this new and wonderful literary form.
posted by jayder at 7:32 PM on April 16, 2011

Response by poster: Submitter here. There were actually two. I apologize for my non-existent linking skills. The first one I uncovered very innocently. I read a wonderful series of essays on McSweenys by a writer named Stef Willen. I googled her name to see if she had other pieces anywhere. Wow. That uncovered a world of shitnasty stuff involving a famous lesbian comedienne and an absolutely batty writer from Salon Open Forum. Beware if you follow the trail. The second was the recent story about Trinity School and Seema Kalia. That's been pretty much all over the place.
posted by Pennyblack at 7:35 PM on April 16, 2011

There's always airnxtz (meta).
posted by jayder at 7:37 PM on April 16, 2011 [4 favorites]

Reddit's IAMA forum often seems to mostly consist of this.
posted by orthogonality at 8:03 PM on April 16, 2011 [4 favorites]

Well, this is less a single blog post and more a fraudulent and complicated plot orchestrated over several years, but still, it's all explained in one place for you if you're interested: The msscribe story.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 8:25 PM on April 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Something along the lines of Kaycee Nicole perhaps?
posted by Jubey at 10:22 PM on April 16, 2011

Perhaps you would like to read about the Baron of Castleshort.
posted by Cuppatea at 3:14 AM on April 17, 2011

Kaycee Nicole is an iconic example of this. It wasn't a single forum post—it was an ongoing fantasy that lasted months, and sucked a lot of people in. There was the recent LucidEnding to-do on Reddit that was somewhat similar. Here on Metafilter, we had our own long-form stealth-participatory-fiction creator, sansgras.

I think the most hilarious example of this kind of thing is the mall ninja. You'll want to set aside some time for this.
posted by adamrice at 6:52 AM on April 17, 2011 [4 favorites]

Seconding mall ninja. Classic.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 9:14 AM on April 17, 2011

I love these! My favorite: His wife? A horse.
posted by streetdreams at 11:06 AM on April 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

This might not count, since everybody knows she's batshit insane, but the story of Gillian McKeith's twitter adventures was quite an interesting one.
posted by teraspawn at 11:47 AM on April 17, 2011

Actually now I think about it, that doesn't answer the question at all. Damn good read, though.
posted by teraspawn at 11:52 AM on April 17, 2011

Response by poster: If anyone has followed the cookie trail of the Trig Notaro/Alison Spitzberg (Fernsy) story and can make sense of it, please PM me. I have formed an opinion, but it's a tenuous one at best.

Mall Ninja? Incredible, but not much of a mystery. Incredibly clever.
Ppppppppppower book was another one, but more of an adventure story than a mystery unfolded.
posted by Pennyblack at 12:39 PM on April 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I second that the trig notaro trail is hard to tease out.

I very much enjoyed the Goldrushs interactions with the Christian Fools and Atheist Fools boards. They were all kind of crazy. Sigh. Good times.
posted by bq at 8:14 PM on April 17, 2011

The Something Awful forums are sometimes open to lurkers, and when they are read Helldump (used to have more content) and E/N
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:27 PM on April 17, 2011

How about Salon's table talk? I once read a thread on there about relationships that was really interesting. The poster was not insane at all, but she was writing about a breakup and getting more and more personal and emotional, and lots of people commented and there was some controversy. This was a few years ago and I haven't looked at Table Talk in a long time though.

Salon also has a lot of insane lettter writers...
posted by bearette at 9:41 PM on April 17, 2011

Fandom wank is pretty much made up of these.
Be sure to check out there wiki.

Honestly, fandom generally is probably the best place for what you're looking for and fandom wank is the distillation of the crazy, the egos and the delusional.
posted by litleozy at 12:50 PM on April 18, 2011

Mod note: folks - this thread needs to pretty much be "here is an example" and not some sort of axe-grinding exploration. feel free to email the OP directly if you need to go there.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:12 PM on April 18, 2011

I don't know if this is quite what you want, but the controversy surrounding Lime Crime is interesting.
posted by mippy at 8:36 AM on April 19, 2011

You might be interested in the story of Alexa DiCarlo, a popular sex blogger who claimed to be a high-priced escort and sex educator. Her whole persona unraveled pretty dramatically last year. This post (NSFW) on tinynibbles.com outlines the situation pretty well, with relevant links (and a bonus tie-in to Scott Adams' recent antics on the blue.)
posted by arianell at 9:14 PM on April 22, 2011