I think it’s time for me to come clean about this. I kinda became addicted to Reddit, but most importantly, reddit stories. It became part of my routine to listen to podcasts that read reddit stories. NGL it’s really enjoyable, but there is always some people that debates if the stories are true.
Then I tried it once. I created a throwaway account and posted a made up story. It gained a lot of traction and nobody even commented about it being fake.
It was supposed to be a one time thing, but then another idea for a story pops up in my head, I create another throwaway with a temp mail and write that another story.
Overtime it became a habit. I’ve posted tens of fake stories, maybe over a hundred. With updates even. I also learned to develop different styles of writing and formatting so people wouldn’t notice they were written by the same person, me.
Some of my stories got into the podcasts I listen to daily. Its always exciting to hear my own stories being read by someone else.
But I realize that this is not healthy anymore. I could develop so many of these stories into short stories or novels. I’ve learned a lot and improved my writing, these are compelling, engaging, even gut-wrenching stories that I think people would like to read if they were books.
It’s time for me to stop this and start writing fiction for real.
Another reason why I should quit it, it’s because I fucking hate the mods, some of my best stories has been deleted for bullshit reasons, or I just can’t find the right sub to post them. But I gotta say, engaging with people in real time is part of the fun of it.
I don’t want you to think everything on reddit is fake, and I don’t care if some posts are fake or not, I have so many fucked up real stories in my family that no reddit story ever even came close to be as fucked up as real life and would be tossed aside as fake instantly. Reality is weirder than fiction.
Thanks for reading my confession. I’ll go out, touch grass, and start writing fiction.
BTW, I only post fake shit on Throwaway accounts, I’ve never done that on my real main account, and I never lie IRL. Maybe that’s why it felt so exciting early on.
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Nice story bro, but I know this is fake as shit. You only wrote fake stories once here. This one. Can’t fool me.
We’ve found them. The AmITheAsshole submitter.
You got me. I am actually the real account for all of this. I thought I would make a fictional post explaining that all my stories were fictional, but they were all actually real. I hope we can start a blank slate from now on. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to come clean. I am not actually the person with the original account making a fictional account to explain my real stories that turned out to be fictional but are actually real (but in reality aren’t). I am the former /r/jailbait moderator Spez.
yeah, who woulld do that? lol
Honestly good on ya mate. Creative writing can be a fantastic outlet and you should absolutely start trying to write short stories.
Plot twist: All of this is made up.
I can’t believe somebody lied on the internet :(
What kind of stories did you submit? I spent way too much time on BestofRedditorUpdates and at least half of the time you spend realizing stories are fake. I’m wondering if I read any of yours
Only 2 of my stories got into BORU and both are kinda recent.
IF you ever wanna totally come clean, you should share which stories specifically you shared. I’m curious to see if people caught on they were fake or not and how
I always assumed that nearly everything on BORU was a creative writing exercise. Thanks for validating my suspicions
No one’s gonna mention the fact that you made a new temp email for each account when you can just sign up without an email?
But it needs email verification.
you can just click next and skip it
I start under the assumption that every reddit post is 100% fiction and work from there. Especially on subs like TIFU or Amitheasshole.
Would be fucking great if we could not do that, though.
That’s why I blocked those subs, they’re all fake or just people looking for validation
I’m glad you’re coming clean. I kinda hope that you go back and delete the fake stories, or at least make clear they’re works of fiction.
Why?
Because people are stupid. They hear an urban legend about a psycopath putting razor blades in apples and all of a sudden no one can have anything but individually wrapped candy during halloween. People overemphasize anectodes to establish political views or actually make policy changes. Academics troll reddit for evidence to support theories. And “news” “reporters” pull stuff from Reddit and report it, often as fact. If it implicates criminal activity or child abuse, that might cause authorities to get involved needlessly.
Maybe your stories aren’t such that they would impact policies, or change political views, or impact lives. I’m sure some of it is just harmless fun (though, when I’d participate in forums like AITA with fake posts, it sure did annoyme), and to some extent, people should be smarter about responding to shitposts. “Throwaway because my friends know my main account” should be a big, red flag. And I’m glad you got to work on your writing skill and voice. I hope you can use it productively in the future, and I wish you the best of luck. (But think about deleting or editing your posts!)
I think there’s something deeper about why people believe. It’s not that they can’t tell fact from fiction, at least not entirely. Quite often, the stories they believe are the ones that reinforce their existing worldview. This is especially true in the realm of politics, but applies to more mundane situations as well.
The people that believe the razer blade in apples story are usually the ones afraid of strangers. But sometimes their memory confuses events and stories, or details get lost. Other times, it’s bad journalism, or public figures trying to make a name for themselves. Bad information, whether malicious or benign, is hard to remove, both from a person and from society in general.
The NY Times, October 28 1970, published the razer blades story. It was full of confidence and input from respectable and trustworthy authorities. It wasn’t until many years later that anyone investigated it, and found it to be total bullshit.
Seems fake.
Any specific sagas you want to admit to? Im legit curious now, lol.
And the saga of the mom who didn’t let her teenage daughter hang out with her older friends, but I can’t find that one right now.
Oh shit, i think the Jessica rabbit one was on BORU!
Oh really?
ill have to see if I can find it if BORU comes back tomorrow.
Don’t worry about it. I always assume reddit stories are fake anyway.
I rarely engage with Reddit stories but when I do, I treat stories in popular-ish subs as discussions about hypothetical scenarios: “if this were to happen then what would you think of it?”
I completely stay away from threads that are clear rage baits, and they are easy to spot.
I always felt the rise of fake stories came with the change to karma for text posts. It used to be that a text post gave no karma and so there was no incentive to karma farm that way. Once the change happened, many text-based subreddits had their quality drop dramatically.
Did you post to r/amitheasshole? I used to love that one
I just find it sad people post lies under the guise of them being real. How much “creative writing” do bigots make about minorities disguising them as real? Probably a lot. It’s really crushing to me because essentially every group status I am in is minority. I’m an immigrant and assumed to be one. I don’t even speak the language of the country of which citizenship I have well and they always think I’m of a different nationality which I don’t even feel like I belong to any. I’m intersex. I’m gnc towards my perceived gender. I’m queer but even within the queer group I’m an odd oat because I don’t fall under the LGBT letters normally because my sexuality is based around genitals (phallophilic). I was born sick which has been affecting my entire life no matter what I do.
I would appreciate if you edited your posts disclosing they were lies and made a big post from your main account documenting all the lies you’ve posted. It would bring awareness to the issue and hopefully more people would come clean and making up stories would become highly frowned upon.
