Lord of the Rip-offs
June 9, 2004 9:45 AM   Subscribe

Tricksy those hobbitses What happens when two girls bilk LotR fans, trick the celebrities, and leave a volunteer holding the bag? Continued fan outrage and careful tracking.
posted by FunkyHelix (19 comments total)
 
Well drat. JF would go down just as I post this. *shakes fist*
posted by FunkyHelix at 9:54 AM on June 9, 2004


Holy crap, this is complicated. But quite fascinating. What we need is a long summary document. If everyone sends me $20 I'll put one together. And then fly Elijah Wood down to autograph it. And then publish the secret fourth LOTR novel, which my great-grandfather Tolkien gave me.
posted by Marquis at 10:09 AM on June 9, 2004


The journalfen link gives the jaw-dropping summary.

Unstable personality meets probable schizophrenic. Madness unravels in public. Three representative excerpts:

1. VB is writing in her LJ about how maybe she *is* going crazy, because she's been channeling the spirit of a long-dead hobbit. And not just any hobbit - she's channeling Merriadoc Brandybuck. Under his original non-anglicized name, whatever it was. She acknowledges that the LOTR hobbits are supposed to be fictional - she doesn't understand why she's getting his dreams and his automatic writing, or "learning" his language which is, according to her, Westron. That's right: the ancient tongue of Middle Earth.

2. "That was the first (and only) time I met them. It was not, I'm sorry to say, a pleasant experience. Amy had several freakout moments. Like, manic, complete, near-seizure freaking out over various things, and both of them spent most of the time talking to each other in something they called Westron (which I don't think actually exists) and deciding that LOTR actually happened (I guess apparently the Shire was supposed to be ancient Hungary and Rivendell was Finland?) and implying that they were the reincarnation of Sam and Frodo."

3. It turns out that "Mr. Frodo" is now calling "himself" Jordan Wood, and living as a man on the west coast - and engaged to OB. Then it comes out that VB thinks/claims/various personages have reported that she's not transgender - she's growing a miracle!penis and *actually* turning into a man. And that man...is Elijah Wood. She's channeling his spirit, even though he's still alive. (Jordan, btw, is Elijah's middle name.) More pics surface, and yes, it's still VB in boy's clothes and blue contacts.

And then something about a whole lot of money embezelled from Sean Astin's charitable project Bit of Earth....
posted by jokeefe at 10:23 AM on June 9, 2004


HAHAHAHA. Victoriabitter.

As an Australian, the first part of that story had me laughing my arse off.

And, if anyone's wondering... VB is Australia's answer to Budweiser, or Miller... cheap, tastes horrible, consumed by the keg by Bruce Average.
posted by cheaily at 10:25 AM on June 9, 2004


I love this story.

I can't figure out fanfic. I mean I saw Harry Potter, but none of it even inspired me to write stories about 12 year olds having sex at boarding school.

A thought: What if this is fanfic about fanfic and there's a whole subgenre of metafanfic about being scammed?
posted by pieoverdone at 10:55 AM on June 9, 2004


A quick summary of what these posts are all about can be found in Turimel's user info page. The events related to how a bunch of people got financially duped by a charity scam invented by "Jordan Wood" is summarized in this post.
posted by deanc at 10:57 AM on June 9, 2004


Now I know: never charge $18,000 of airline tickets to my personal credit card.
posted by smackfu at 11:10 AM on June 9, 2004


What? I mean, huh? So this girl, who thought she was a hobbit becomes a lesbian, loses her mind, um, commits suicide, produces child porn, becomes a man, becomes Elijah Wood, and then embezzles from a charity?

*scratches head, shrugs and returns to sculpting a life size Gandolf out of fois gras*
posted by elwoodwiles at 11:32 AM on June 9, 2004


Sounds as complicated as the Simarillion, yet a lot less epic.
posted by infowar at 11:39 AM on June 9, 2004


Complicated fan freakdom. I dunno, were the movies really that good? Or are there just a certain set of people out there in the world looking to glom on to any angle they can to exploit it for personal gain?

Or is this yet another run at Fleecing the Geeks?
posted by fenriq at 11:44 AM on June 9, 2004


Yep, what jokeefe said, the journalfen link describes most of the story, though it's a bit hard to follow at times.

The only thing I can think after reading all of this is.. How sad. For everyone involved.
posted by mojo80 at 11:50 AM on June 9, 2004


A thought: What if this is fanfic about fanfic and there's a whole subgenre of metafanfic about being scammed?

Shhh! The real artform is in MetaFilter threads about metafan scamfic. But self-reference will destroy it, as it does all things. Damn I just did it didn't I...
posted by freebird at 11:53 AM on June 9, 2004


I dunno, were the movies really that good?
Yes.

Or are there just a certain set of people out there in the world looking to glom on to any angle they can to exploit it for personal gain?
Yes, but it has less to do with personal gain than escape. There is a well-documented and researched personality feature realted to susceptibility to fantasy. The type of person who enjoys (requires? uses?) immersing themselves deeply in fantastic alternate lives. Certain fantasy settings may have specific attraction (the [percieved] pedophilic homoerotic tendencies of Sam and Frodo, for instance) but it is unreality in general that attracts fantasy prone individuals. Take, for instance, the switch these two made to Harry Potter Fandom. For an interesting study of this phenomenon, see LotR director Peter Jackson's earlier film Heavenly Creatures.

Can any LJ fandom insiders tell me what some of the jargon in these articles means? Like "slashing" "JournalFen" "fields of wank and pools of spooge" (dare I ask?) etc?

on preview: awesome, freebird. Baudrillard will surely appreciate your part in bringing about the implosion.
posted by ChasFile at 3:02 PM on June 9, 2004


Can any LJ fandom insiders tell me what some of the jargon in these articles means? Like "slashing" "JournalFen" "fields of wank and pools of spooge" (dare I ask?) etc?

Let me take a crack. Slashing is the act of taking two characters and writing them into homoerotic fan fiction called slash fiction. Journalfen is Journalfen.net. It's a journal service like Livejournal, but no one under 18 is permitted, and it was created for fandom and media related journals. Fields of wank are fandoms. Wank is masturbation, so pools of spooge is the result. Anything else?
posted by FunkyHelix at 3:13 PM on June 9, 2004


Also as JF is invite only to adults, anyone so moved to want a JF account drop me an e-mail or e-mail someone in codes, and we'll try to hook you up.
posted by FunkyHelix at 3:25 PM on June 9, 2004


*scratches head, shrugs and returns to sculpting a life size Gandolf out of fois gras*

oooooh, wizard fois gras....I'll bring home made bread then, shall I? Of course, surely there's a charity who'll pick up my tickets. ;)

Funky, thanks for the clarification. Lord knows I tried to get through the links...but my brain rebelled and instead, I had to turn my attention to this lovely 1996 Bordeaux that I'm drinking in remembrance of a friend. (Which I considered making a fpp, but so much of her fiction got co-opted by the weird furry set that I decided not to chance it...) The furries, by the way, make slashfic look normal...and dude, that's a freaking trick, I tell you what.
posted by dejah420 at 7:55 PM on June 9, 2004


I've been half-heartedly paying attention to this drama for a while, mostly because a couple of my friends frequented the BoE messageboards and talked about what was going on.

Now, granted, I am a fangirl (not for Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter...) who writes fanfic (and the ocassional slash fic). I realize how geeky and sad that sounds. But I keep that part of my life separate from everything else in my life. However, I can see how someone could really fall hard into a particular fandom and let it take them over.

But at the same time... damn. That's some messed-up crap right there.
posted by elf_baby at 9:25 PM on June 9, 2004


FicticousFrodoFanFicFilter
posted by ciderwoman at 5:15 AM on June 10, 2004


I've read some fanfic from LOTR. Some of it was good, and I could see myself taking a stab at it. But the fandom psychosis, scary stuff.

Dejah: I lost a dear friend to the furries. What a bizarre world they create!
posted by Goofyy at 4:49 AM on June 16, 2004


« Older That DVD blowed up real good!   |   Narconon Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments