So strange. I had never heard of. Go ask Alice, and then last week I was listening to a 5-year-old podcast episode of "I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats" and they were talking about it.
Baader–Meinhof phenomenon
A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller
61–70 of 104 posts
Re: A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
My anecdote agrees: a good friend of mine was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and is now an incredible salesman. He explained that he spent his entire childhood selling something no one wanted and where people would hurl insults at him daily. Now as an adult in business, selling whatever product is 100x easier and he has limitless tolerance for rejection.
Yeah, I served my mission in California and I can say there aren't many topics that make strangers more uncomfortable than religion. At the end of the day, though, I found most people (whether or not they were interested in religion) care about being happy and having purpose and it was/is enjoyable to observe common ground with other humans in that realm. That being said, lots of people get pissed about religion bein…
No post body was provided.
Re: A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller
#63> Utah, reputed to be the fraud capital of America; the state is estimated by some to boast a Ponzi scheme for every hundred thousand people Small tangent, but does anybody in Utah have insight into why this might be? This is bewildering to me.
Utah now has a fraud registry (like a sex offender registry) to help prevent serial fraudsters from finding another mark. I have no idea if it's effective but it did seem like a good idea when they first implemented it.
It's somewhat interesting reading to just skip around and see the different kinds of schemes being used (they all have descriptions of the how the fraud worked).
https://www.utfraud.com/Home/Registry
I also suggest the /r/scams subreddit to keep up on what is out there. Most are laughably bad but occasionally some are quite clever.
Re: A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller
#64This is the end of TFA: > Emerson sees Sparks chiefly as an impostor, but she comes across as a true believer, both in evil and in her capacity to combat it by scaring teen-agers straight. Imposter vs. True Believer: evil schemer or naive righteous soccer mom... Mmm... Or maybe she was... an artist?! I find it quite shocking and incredible that still today, she's casually dismissed as a fabricator. Every fiction is a…
No post body was provided.
Re: A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller
#65This is the end of TFA: > Emerson sees Sparks chiefly as an impostor, but she comes across as a true believer, both in evil and in her capacity to combat it by scaring teen-agers straight. Imposter vs. True Believer: evil schemer or naive righteous soccer mom... Mmm... Or maybe she was... an artist?! I find it quite shocking and incredible that still today, she's casually dismissed as a fabricator. Every fiction is a…
Quoted post unavailable.
No post body was provided.
Re: A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller
#66The podcast You’re Wrong About recently did a three-part series on Go Ask Alice with Carmen Maria Machado. Episodes are here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1112270 or pull them down in your favorite podcatcher.
Just a tangential request: is there any curated playlist consisting of such good podcasts? I have a difficult time discovering interesting podcasts. (Maybe that's an interesting project)
What are you interested in? I have a fairly large list of podcasts that I listen to, I could maybe recommend a few. Sadly, many have wrapped up but the feeds are still up.
Re: A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller
#67This is the end of TFA: > Emerson sees Sparks chiefly as an impostor, but she comes across as a true believer, both in evil and in her capacity to combat it by scaring teen-agers straight. Imposter vs. True Believer: evil schemer or naive righteous soccer mom... Mmm... Or maybe she was... an artist?! I find it quite shocking and incredible that still today, she's casually dismissed as a fabricator. Every fiction is a…
I agree with your characterization of fiction and poetry. There have been many writers who wrote fictional diaries (e.g. Max Frisch' Stiller) and other (real) diaries that entered the realm of literature (e.g. the diaries of Anne Frank).
I'd say where most people would draw the line is when someone tries to sell something as autobiographic that has been clearly made up for moralist reasons, yet still lie about it's authenticity.
This has nothing to do with the book, and everything to do with the person who pretends to have lived a live that they have not.
In the end the artwork can sometimes be more wise, intelligent and impactful than the artist who made it. Yet the context the artist creates will always colour the reception.
Re: A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller
#68Re: A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think LDS folks have a little too much trust in other LDS folk. “Brother So-in-so works for doTerra, Sister So-in-so sells it and says it cleared up her eczema. These people wouldn’t lie to me!” And so they take whatever they say as truth. I don’t think it’s what I would describe as “childish gullibility”. But too much unchecked trust in members of their circles (still gullibility. But I wouldn’t call it childish).…
I sympathize a lot with the moms you characterize as "wanting to make an easy buck." How do you put in 8 hours a day as an accountant or hair stylist or fire fighter or HR rep between morning snack, potty training, reading time, nap time, outside play time, music time, etc.? Maybe you try to get paid for raising your own kids by daycaring other kids at the same time. Is that also an easy buck? Not everybody has a k8s…
Oh don’t get me wrong. I get it. maybe “easy buck” was lazy commenting. Being able to work your own hours, focus on the family you prioritize, work from home, etc etc. I get all that and is exactly what I was trying to say with “easy buck”. Poor choice of words.
Re: A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller
#70I read 'go ask alice' as a teenager and even back then i found it blatantly fiction, watching a pretty-with-curls little darling degenerate into a sweary brat wasn't plausible.
I don't like being lied to, not like this and not by the coppas (I'm a brit) who came round to our school to give us The Drugs Talk. In a limited sense, when I became an adult (and a lot later), I was less afraid to experiment with drugs because of the one-sidedness of my drugs so-called 'education'. I guess it worked on some other kids though.