(no subject)
I must confess bemusement and cynicism regarding the latest flaring of internet drama. Issues which should have been laid to rest years ago are now dancing across my screen again.
Some five years ago, a few people claim to have been hoodwinked into believing RPG characters were real. Some claim to have parted with money. Others claim to have parted their legs. More likely they parted with common sense.
They chose to believe. They wanted the mystery, the thrill, the romantic illusion. They hungered for fiction to be fact.
Their choice is their responsibility.
If I told you I was Spiderman, would you believe me? Would you hurl yourself off a building in the belief I'd catch you in my Spidey web? Of course you wouldn't. (Or if you did, then you freely chose your manner of death.)
Yet a few gullible, possibly vulnerable people chose to tell themselves that bored housewives posing as Lestat and Marius and company were real. As a result, some claim to have been caught up in a hypnotic game of deception. Self-deception.
And now, all this time later, we have another flurry of drama regarding long-defunct web forums. And while complaints about Copyright and Intellectual Ownership are valid, I doubt if the protagonists truly give a damn about this. Especially as they too were RPGing for all they were worth at the time. And in some cases still are.
So what's the real motive? Attention? Still whining because one person's forum proved more popular than another's?
Ultimately, who cares. It's over. Entire years have sailed by since. To employ an Americanism: Get a life.