The Syrian lesbian was actually an American straight man from Edinburgh

[frenchani]

The Internet gives us great opportunities to ponder the matter of identity. There are many fakes around but they work because they meet the expectations of many people...even journalists whose job should be to tell truth and lies apart. Basically we want to believe, we want to be fooled. It's something that magicians have always understand.

The

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[sister_luck]

I can't find his statement any more, but I read something on the BBC website that ran along the lines of:

I'm a straight, middle-aged American white guy, no one wants to listen to me talk about the Middle East, they just accuse me of being anti-American and anti-Jewish, I have to pretend to be a middle-Eastern Lesbian to be taken seriously.

(And I wonder now where that statement disappeared to. Whether it was really from him talking on the phone while vacationing in Istanbul....)

Narrative trumps all, again.

[sister_luck]

Ah, found it here:

Mr MacMaster, who is on holiday in Istanbul, told BBC Scotland: "I really felt a number of years ago, in discussions on Middle East issues in the US, often when I presented real facts and opinions, the immediate reaction to someone with my name was: 'Why are you anti-American? Why are you anti-Jewish?'

"So I invented a name to talk under that would keep the focus on the actual issue."

Has he ever heard of appropriation?

[frenchani]

And he stole the picture of a woman from Eastern Europe!

Apparently his wife ratted him out.

I remember another fake blog written revealed earlier this year, this time it was quite morbid, written by a girl who pretended to be very ill, terminally ill (and her twin sister was supposed to have died from the same cancer), reviewed her daily treatment and suffering and moved hundreds of followers on the web during 3 years while she was actually in great shape. I guess that "disease blogs" may often be hoax.

It's like Frederic Bourdin's impostures.

[sister_luck]

There is a video interview on the Guardian website now. I listened to the first five minutes. I can't take any more.

He compares himself to a novelist and calls Amina a character. It seems like he has been using this persona for quite some time - five years on dating websites if I understood it correctly? Definitely a fabulist, hiding behind that a girl because guys would be more polite to her.

[fragrantwoods]

I've known people who did this in real life-one raised a lot of money for "treatments". I would be terrified of the bad karma it seems this kind of thing would create. Plus, the whole lying/immoral part...

People make me sigh. Hence, my love of fiction that knows it is fiction.

[frenchani]

In a way, those people are indeed very ill...