I'm of two minds on this...as a blog, I'm not sure that it matters if the person is making things up. Where I think it becomes dangerous is when that person begins to connect with people who are being genuine in their attempt to have a friendship. I think this is a much more dangerous thing when people misrepresent themselves in an online community like a list or on a message board. If it's your own blog, why not make things up? But the key is that it needs to stay in the blog and maybe that's just not possible.

Tamar, thank you for this post... you raised some important points that I think have been swept aside in people's anger over this issue.

A team of former Plain Layne commenters have established a re-created Plain Layne Archive,covering all "her" posts from 2001 to 2004, hosted at the original address:

http://plainlayne.dreamhost.com

I read a blogger that I am quite certain is fake. I was taken in at first, but then things were just too over-the-top, and also became very coincidental. There was also the yank-and-run thing as an MO. I still read it, but with a kind of...hmm...not exactly disdain, but I just don't take it very seriously anymore.

Rachel, I'm with you. Of two minds. It does break an unspoken covenant with the reader, I think. I find it fascinating nevertheless.

Bee, who??? (Feel free to email me privately.)

Ryan, thanks.

Tamar, thanks again for your opinion on the matter. Your approaching this from the writer's side sheds light on a few details that probably weren't clear to most of the people involved in this.

Rachel, the whole point is that with Plain Layne, it didn't stay in the blog. There were IM chats, email conversations, Layne's comments on other people's blogs. People *were* connecting with her in genuine attempts to have a friendship, hence all the anger and hurt, especially in the comment thread on noematic.org.