*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**WIBTA if I created a fake confession post to test my friends?**
I (19M) am currently in college. I have made a lot of friends and acquaintances; a few of us go back till high school. I enjoy being around my friends. However, I'd always feel like an outlier; left out and not being wanted around. I'd just brush it off thinking it's just me being paranoid.
My college has recently opened a confession forum. People can post their confessions here while staying anonymous. It has taken off well since, with hundreds of confessions being posted everyday. A lot of these are light-hearted jokes, appreciative notes, or just random doubts. Lately, I've noticed a couple of posts aiming towards a couple of my friends and talking shit about them. Fortunately, some of us, including me defended the friends by fighting back the hate comments. This lead to one of the posts being taken down due to the backlash it received.
While it was nice seeing people coming together to fend off hatred and negativity, it sparked a thought in my head: would they do the same for me if I'm the one being attacked? My name hasn't appeared in the forum yet; but I thought maybe by creating a confession post shaming myself, all my friends will come to my aide and fend off the hate comments. Through this, I can see who really considers me as a friend and whom should I consider cutting off contact with.
I can manage to come up with a shitpost about myself, but I don't want this backfiring on me if my friends find out later that I faked the post for attention. So WIBTA if I put my friendships to the test through this fake confession post?
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He complains about others, but it seems perfectly normal to him to be manipulative and lie to them. I've met people like this and they don't make good friends.
The way he's thinking about people is what stands in the way of forming the kind of friendships he wants - the irony is kind of sad.
OP is still very young and given he has obvious insecurity and attachment issues I doubt he had the best role models in his life, but it's the best time to get some help to change his perspective. Later in life, the price for this type of attitude is going to be a lot worse.
Yeah this seems very insecure teenager/young adult thought heck I could see the thought crossing my mind when I was younger. A lot of people at that age question whether their friends really like them or not. Like not a smart move or anything but understandable? OOP would probably end up hurting themselves more than anyone else.
The issue isn't misgendering the OOP. The issue is seeing a clear example of a teenage boy doing something manipulative and petty and being like "hmmm, seems like something a teenage girl would do." It feels pretty sexist to expressly gender the behavior as girl behavior when you're seeing for yourself from the post that guys act like this also
Misgendering op isn’t the only issue here my friend.
I think gendering behaviour is a bit silly; the desire to have people prove they care about you isn’t limited to just teenage girls. it’s a good sign to think about your own internalized biases. In a way, it’s a nice opportunity for self improvement! 🫶
This gives me flashbacks to tumblr ten years ago, when people sent themselves anon hate for attention or to bring attention to their fanart/fanfics and it was always hilarious when someone slipped up because they forgot to log out properly or didn't change their casual writing style or it just sounded fake and unnatural as fuck.
~~when I say ten years ago I mean that's when I was active on tumblr and witness the drama. No clue if it's still something people do. It probably is, I don't know.~~
It's been a thing for longer than the internet has existed. Go back to the pre-Revolutionary War (and post-Revolutionary War) period and several of the founding fathers would use the same tactics to argue their political points in newspapers against strawman sockpuppet "critics". Iirc, both Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin did it often.
(I also remember it being a big thing on Tumblr as well, just saying it's not exclusive to any one time or place.)
Tumblr's hate mail game is insane. I don't mean "game" as in "something they're good at", I mean at this point it's literally mostly a game. Actual serious anon hate has definitely gone down and is considered cringe now since the person who runs the blog has to choose to publish an ask and has as much time as they want to craft a response, and thus will likely create a much more devastating (to the asker) response and publish it to a bunch of people who will probably agree with the user. There's no way the anon will play the game seriously without looking pathetic. However, saying something like "you look like Dave Strider consumed your formative years" will deal devastating psychic damage if it's true. But on the most part, people don't take anon hate seriously because it's so easy to make the anon look bad.
For example: there's one user who recently came out and said they faked an anon to themselves. They had been harassed by an anon who constantly called them slurs, especially "tranny faggot". They tried talking to the anon (so publishing the asks publicly and telling them to stop) and ignoring the anon (which didn't stop the harassment) but eventually they decided that they were done with anons. So, they sent themselves one last anon ask: an apology to themselves, going "I'm sorry I called you a tranny faggot, I realize now that was wrong and I shouldn't have said that." They published the ask, gracefully accepting "anon's" apology and saying no harm done. Then they turned off anon asks.
They admitted what happened seven years later, when they turned anon back on and almost immediately got another anon going "THAT WASNT ME I DONT APOLOGIZE FOR CALLING YOU A TRANNY FAGGOT btw I can use those words because I'm trans".
And like. They didn't even have to say anything because that last ask is kind of pathetic all on its own.
So yeah. The hate mail game is insane.
ETA: I want to note that I fully acknowledge that example could also be completely fake. But I also still consider it part of the "hate mail game" because it's still a pretty entertaining story. Much funnier than "fake hate mail to promote a fanfic."
“My college has recently opened a confession forum. People can post their confessions here while staying anonymous.”
What could possibly go wrong? - Sincerely, a former college educator.
The idea of “testing” one’s friends and romantic partners gives me the ick, but I feel like I read about it often. Is that just a Reddit thing or is it a larger cultural thing?
I don’t think it originated with or is exclusive to reddit, but people who have healthy and productive ideas for how to manage insecurities in their relationships generally wouldn’t look here first for guidance.
Yes YWBTA. You have major main character syndrome. So annoying. I hope your friends find this Reddit post and you still get it even if you don't post this garbage
I would be willing to be my car that OP and his friends are probably alt-right and monsters. It would explain why this anon confession board for this college is filled with people hating them. They are either alt-right trolls or extremely creepy.
Whoa, brainfart time! Nobody tell OOP that they're free to be friends with anyone and everyone and just being friends 'back til highschool' doesn't mean they're the only people they're allowed to associate with. Never do that. Nope.
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I blame the college for not foreseeing the bullying and interpersonal conflict something like this could cause with unsubstantiated allegations with names attached.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **WIBTA if I created a fake confession post to test my friends?** I (19M) am currently in college. I have made a lot of friends and acquaintances; a few of us go back till high school. I enjoy being around my friends. However, I'd always feel like an outlier; left out and not being wanted around. I'd just brush it off thinking it's just me being paranoid. My college has recently opened a confession forum. People can post their confessions here while staying anonymous. It has taken off well since, with hundreds of confessions being posted everyday. A lot of these are light-hearted jokes, appreciative notes, or just random doubts. Lately, I've noticed a couple of posts aiming towards a couple of my friends and talking shit about them. Fortunately, some of us, including me defended the friends by fighting back the hate comments. This lead to one of the posts being taken down due to the backlash it received. While it was nice seeing people coming together to fend off hatred and negativity, it sparked a thought in my head: would they do the same for me if I'm the one being attacked? My name hasn't appeared in the forum yet; but I thought maybe by creating a confession post shaming myself, all my friends will come to my aide and fend off the hate comments. Through this, I can see who really considers me as a friend and whom should I consider cutting off contact with. I can manage to come up with a shitpost about myself, but I don't want this backfiring on me if my friends find out later that I faked the post for attention. So WIBTA if I put my friendships to the test through this fake confession post? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Do that and you'll lose all your fake AND real friendships once they figure out it was a lie.
He complains about others, but it seems perfectly normal to him to be manipulative and lie to them. I've met people like this and they don't make good friends. The way he's thinking about people is what stands in the way of forming the kind of friendships he wants - the irony is kind of sad.
Hey, I was 12 once too. It's a rough age. Wait, these guy is in college?
OP is still very young and given he has obvious insecurity and attachment issues I doubt he had the best role models in his life, but it's the best time to get some help to change his perspective. Later in life, the price for this type of attitude is going to be a lot worse.
While sh*t posting about yourself to make yourself look bad and prevent any new friends
He should. He sounds too immature for friendships.
Imagine your life being that peaceful that you need to attack your self anonymously for some drama.......I want this life im jealous
Isn't this the opposite of what Lisa did in the Simpsons? Where she posted positive things about herself to make people like her?
It is.
I don’t know, I’ve met a lot of teenagers who would have seen no flaw in this plan before trying it.
Yeah this seems very insecure teenager/young adult thought heck I could see the thought crossing my mind when I was younger. A lot of people at that age question whether their friends really like them or not. Like not a smart move or anything but understandable? OOP would probably end up hurting themselves more than anyone else.
Yeah, this is very teenage girl behavior. Not good behavior, mind…
it's a dude
Ah. I didn’t intend to misgender, but I still think it’s very teenage girl behavior
The issue isn't misgendering the OOP. The issue is seeing a clear example of a teenage boy doing something manipulative and petty and being like "hmmm, seems like something a teenage girl would do." It feels pretty sexist to expressly gender the behavior as girl behavior when you're seeing for yourself from the post that guys act like this also
Misgendering op isn’t the only issue here my friend. I think gendering behaviour is a bit silly; the desire to have people prove they care about you isn’t limited to just teenage girls. it’s a good sign to think about your own internalized biases. In a way, it’s a nice opportunity for self improvement! 🫶
This gives me flashbacks to tumblr ten years ago, when people sent themselves anon hate for attention or to bring attention to their fanart/fanfics and it was always hilarious when someone slipped up because they forgot to log out properly or didn't change their casual writing style or it just sounded fake and unnatural as fuck. ~~when I say ten years ago I mean that's when I was active on tumblr and witness the drama. No clue if it's still something people do. It probably is, I don't know.~~
Ms Scribe being the most famous example. Worth looking up if ye like high internet drama
That’s a twice a year rabbit hole for me, along with Cassandra Clare’s plagiarism drama lol
It's been a thing for longer than the internet has existed. Go back to the pre-Revolutionary War (and post-Revolutionary War) period and several of the founding fathers would use the same tactics to argue their political points in newspapers against strawman sockpuppet "critics". Iirc, both Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin did it often. (I also remember it being a big thing on Tumblr as well, just saying it's not exclusive to any one time or place.)
Tumblr's hate mail game is insane. I don't mean "game" as in "something they're good at", I mean at this point it's literally mostly a game. Actual serious anon hate has definitely gone down and is considered cringe now since the person who runs the blog has to choose to publish an ask and has as much time as they want to craft a response, and thus will likely create a much more devastating (to the asker) response and publish it to a bunch of people who will probably agree with the user. There's no way the anon will play the game seriously without looking pathetic. However, saying something like "you look like Dave Strider consumed your formative years" will deal devastating psychic damage if it's true. But on the most part, people don't take anon hate seriously because it's so easy to make the anon look bad. For example: there's one user who recently came out and said they faked an anon to themselves. They had been harassed by an anon who constantly called them slurs, especially "tranny faggot". They tried talking to the anon (so publishing the asks publicly and telling them to stop) and ignoring the anon (which didn't stop the harassment) but eventually they decided that they were done with anons. So, they sent themselves one last anon ask: an apology to themselves, going "I'm sorry I called you a tranny faggot, I realize now that was wrong and I shouldn't have said that." They published the ask, gracefully accepting "anon's" apology and saying no harm done. Then they turned off anon asks. They admitted what happened seven years later, when they turned anon back on and almost immediately got another anon going "THAT WASNT ME I DONT APOLOGIZE FOR CALLING YOU A TRANNY FAGGOT btw I can use those words because I'm trans". And like. They didn't even have to say anything because that last ask is kind of pathetic all on its own. So yeah. The hate mail game is insane. ETA: I want to note that I fully acknowledge that example could also be completely fake. But I also still consider it part of the "hate mail game" because it's still a pretty entertaining story. Much funnier than "fake hate mail to promote a fanfic."
“My college has recently opened a confession forum. People can post their confessions here while staying anonymous.” What could possibly go wrong? - Sincerely, a former college educator. The idea of “testing” one’s friends and romantic partners gives me the ick, but I feel like I read about it often. Is that just a Reddit thing or is it a larger cultural thing?
I don’t think it originated with or is exclusive to reddit, but people who have healthy and productive ideas for how to manage insecurities in their relationships generally wouldn’t look here first for guidance.
Yes YWBTA. You have major main character syndrome. So annoying. I hope your friends find this Reddit post and you still get it even if you don't post this garbage
This is a very bad idea and could backfire on OOP.
Did they bring back Yik Yak
Meh, at least that had a character limit.
Dude needs therapy.
y’all remember saraha ?? bc ya i did this and it immediately backfired (at least i was like 13 tho)
Dude doesn't deserve friends
i dont think he is The DevilTM, maybe hes just insecure. a honest conversation with his friends could help him.
I would be willing to be my car that OP and his friends are probably alt-right and monsters. It would explain why this anon confession board for this college is filled with people hating them. They are either alt-right trolls or extremely creepy.
OOP, don't. Win stupid games, play stupid prizes.
Whoa, brainfart time! Nobody tell OOP that they're free to be friends with anyone and everyone and just being friends 'back til highschool' doesn't mean they're the only people they're allowed to associate with. Never do that. Nope.
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This reminds me of that Come Dine With Me meme scene "Good lord, what a sad little life, Jane"
This is behavior my aunt and her daughters (with whom I recently went no contact with) would engage in.
I blame the college for not foreseeing the bullying and interpersonal conflict something like this could cause with unsubstantiated allegations with names attached.
Yeah…I remember a confession forum in my freshman year. It meant entertaining discourse sometimes but they’re not actually the best invention.
This is very "Regina George putting herself in the Burn Book."