Fake Profiles (catfishing)

[Rhybear]

I wanted to give my 2 cents about this and also have a tread just for this.
I learned my lesson in the before times ;-) when I had the chat room around. It happens to everyone. I now look at it as fun. Get your jollies that you are talking about tall guys, stats or whatever. It is not right yes, but until laws are places just who cares. They are always caught, and they last a few months at most.

I believe that most gay tall men do not like to talk about there size. A few "giants" I have met in real life actually hate it when that is the first few questions.

As I get ancient I just smile at how I use to act when someone lied to me. It will happen to you and me again, no point getting angry or calling them out. With all the modern day tech out there it takes a few moments to create an identity, and a few more to search and find the real person, no matter how well you try.

Final note, I did not mean for anything I post to be regarded as serious. It is just my 2 cents again.

 

[jamie]

Good post gianthunter.

It's a bit like those Nigerian money scams, they only continue because someone in a thousand is duped.

It's pointless getting angry at a faker, be angry at yourself for being fooled and don't let it happen again. You can't change them much, so why try?

 

[Bigz]

Yeah I've been trying to make some local friends but the unrealistically tall or short ones seem to either have no way to travel, no house, or mysteriously drop contact once we agree to meet up in person. I don't fall for the accounts that use horribly written English or giants that revel in their size at fetish-like-levels. (I feel so powerful and huge!!! Hahaha!) Please... No nonficticious person says that...

Mostly it just makes me sad when someone you think could be a decent friend really... doesn't exist I suppose it's my fault for using a site like this to make new real life friends. Had a lot more luck on Reddit!

 

[Kris210]

real friends is allways tricky to find on the internet, im more here for the fun. i wouldnt say i have any real friends from the web, not since my early World of Warcraft days but i do have some people i enjoy talking to and who i consider to have friend potential had i met them in the real world. so its not like im emotionally shut off from online contact, i just like to keep a little distance

 

[Rhybear]

Good point, and even more we all have some real friends if you played WOW. I still talk to many who I use to play with and never met.

 

[loststar]

WOW i played it for a short time. . but i'm still hooked on Everquest 2. Through that game i have met many real life friends.

 

[Kris210]

its good how hours spend trying to avoid socialisation can lead up to one getting friends hehe and wow is the best waste of time out there ..!

 

[Bigz]

I only played WoW with my close RL friends, so to me it was a good bonding experience with people I already knew! ^_^'

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Back on topic. What do you do if you know someone's faking it? Just let them continue the charade and duping dozens of others? Feels wrong to let that continue, but it feels wrong to point fingers as well.

 

[the8th]

Maybe I am too oriented towards righting wrongs, but I am not, and will never be ok with people who lie about who they are online, much more significantly when it's done for sexually influenced reasons. It's manipulative and wrong, and there is no getting around that. I can't fix everything, but if I am around people like this I get fairly rabid, and I will attempt to out them or put a stop to it if it appears I can get the community at large to see it. What's honestly more infuriating is when others acnowledge what they're doing, but label me as the bad guy for trying to out it. Ok, so how is that rational? It's like a weird form of Stockholm syndrome.

There is a reason I talk to almost no one on a one-on-one manner on this forum, because the frequency of liars is so high that I operate under the assumption that people aren't who they say they are until it's proven otherwise. There's also a high frequency of morally wishy-washy and creepy people with no sense of boundaries or respect. I only stay around here for the most part to quietly police things, and shut shit down when it spills out of this forum into other public areas.

 

[Bigz]

Interesting input thanks. Any examples as to what "no sense of boundaries or respect"? Not sure what that means for fake profiles.

Well what about people who lack hard evidence but have red flags everywhere? Like saying they have no camera, or hide from the press which is why their record breaking size has never been recorded anywhere, or claiming they are on vacation forever and you can't visit them at their hometown. Those are sketchy reasons but like there's no way to prove those as lies sadly. No "hard evidence" per say, yet it screams fake.

 

[the8th]

Interesting input thanks. Any examples as to what "no sense of boundaries or respect"? Not sure what that means for fake profiles.

Well what about people who lack hard evidence but have red flags everywhere? Like saying they have no camera, or hide from the press which is why their record breaking size has never been recorded anywhere, or claiming they are on vacation forever and you can't visit them at their hometown. Those are sketchy reasons but like there's no way to prove those as lies sadly. No "hard evidence" per say, yet it screams fake.

No bounderies = unsolicited "you're hot, can I see your feet?" messages, and other stuff like it. It's completely and utterly disrespectful.

If I were in charge I'd just ban them and be done with it. If they start to get loud/prolific then I call them on it. Fortunately that seems to be on the rarer side of things.

 

[spieltitan]

I will sound rude now but how naive (if not stupid) do you have to be, to not realize that 99.9% of all "tall guy" aka 6'8'' or even 7'+ profiles are faked? It is extremelly rare to be tall (<1% and getting lower the higher you go) it is kinda rare to be gay (<5-10%) and then there are supposed to be tons of guys in this forum who are extremelly tall, gay and have a "I'm so tall'-fetish. Hmhm yeah this seems very likely.

 

[Kris210]

you are right it is rare to be tall, but you have to take into consideration that the world is big, and that tall people tend to seek eachother out, and so, many will find the same tall related forums.

 

[loststar]

Well its quite a good discussion, which is why we set up the service of "certified tower" thus anyone one on here can "prove" their height, be stamped with the Certified Tower flag on their profile.

It is a bit of a process, but it can be done without revealing any identity information. (no face pic is required), so staying anonymous is not an issue.

You can be quite certain, if they have the "certified tower" tag. . they are the height they say they are, with a possible 1 inch variance.

 

[Bigz]

That's a good step. Thanks for setting such a thing up (wasn't around when that was added). Guess I'll dismiss anyone who doesn't have the tag, just to be cautious. Although the impossibly short people will still get by, but whatever. That's not what the site's about for most people!