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whoaisnotme as a research topic of its own
Taluthah2017-05-01 19:48:04


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I've just fund this by chance - openening this webpage for the first time on my Mum's computer and this link was within the top search results:

https://books.google.de/books?id=KLMFDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT63&lpg=PT63&dq=whoaisnotme&source=bl&ots=EdUqsvDXEM&sig=pyfk5XqxahxSF5DiwBr4sMxPV3E&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIm5H3zc7TAhVHSRoKHVg8CboQ6AEIZDAM#v=onepage&q=whoaisnotme&f=false

I guess I'll read this later on.

Anakin McFly
2017-05-01 21:19:57

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Argh that paper ;_;

It presents a very negatively skewed version of fandom - the author's main case study was UGossip, which she used as representative of Keanu fandom. WINM was one of the other sites she looked into, but ignored the parts that didn't fit into her thesis.

LucaM
2017-05-02 02:17:08


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What Ani said; it's intentionally malicious and negative towards fandom. She focuses mainly on ugossip and ignores fansites like KeanuWeb or ClubKeanu (now closed but at the time when she 'interacted' with fandom, very much alive). Also, she only cherry picked posts from the WINM forums, twisted those to fit her thesis, and completely ignored WINM's primary function as an archive....

Taluthah2017-05-03 02:11:30


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that was definitely weird and superficial crap.In fact, what is the new point here?

I think she could have done a much better job if she had really been interested in the subject.

LucaM
2017-05-03 02:17:35


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if she had really been interested in the subject.

bingo ! you just hit the nail on its head.

MmeRenard
2017-05-12 07:54:31


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Oh man! That's just funny! See my post JUST made BEFORE I saw this - "the crazy little dutch girl" - since it popped up in an Ask Jeeves search.

I WAS THERE. I SAW THE WHOLE FREAKING THING.

Taluthah, she knows nothing about WINM, and if she did, she'd stay away, because she's clever enough to know that we would kick her fishy ass.

She was interested (excuse me in advance) in fucking with people. She HATES Keanu, she spoke with intense loathing about Jennifer.

Yeah, she "interacted" all right - see my post around the article "Much Ado about KR" - manipulating, teasing some lonely, vulnerable, gullible people. A friend of mine at the time - bipolar, deeply depressed, alcoholic and now deceased at 52 - was promised invitations to parties, premiers, and died disappointed and a little angry at Keanu - who certainly never knew a thing about it.

She's a sociopathic bitch. And I don't say that sort of thing lightly, as you all well know.

MmeRenard
2017-05-12 08:05:49


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...and this is a little weird, because I was just wondering casually if she was still at it, with her "claim to fame" - and here we are.

Why is this popping up now? probably jealousy. She insisted that the Matrix was stupid and would be a huge flop. The great success of John Wick probably has her in a tizzy.

The fact that she is still around doing this more than twenty years later is frankly creepy.

MmeRenard
2017-05-12 08:18:07


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1) her central "thesis" is "fandom is weird, and can be manipulated into being weirder"

2)she never met or interviewed anyone, and there is not and never will be a shred of proof that she did. it's a work of FICTION

3) she created ALL of the "drama", by expounding on her (imaginary) relationship with Keanu

4) NO CONSENT (1999) WAS EVER SOUGHT OR GRANTED

5) curious that she no longer uses identifiable fan "interviews" and that she no longer claims to have interviewed Keanu over lunch at the Chateau Marmont

MmeRenard
2017-05-12 08:22:11


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Yeah, Shenja, I'm sure you are reading this. I saw it all. I have an excellent memory.

It is actually sad. I hope that you are not a danger to Keanu, because this - which is very different from our weird but harmless appreciation of him as an actor and a person, from what limited amount we know - is obsession.

Keanu is loved by many, many people, for his work, for his strong creative ethic, for his personal kindness.
Maybe that's an example that you might, at long last, find instructive.

LucaM
2017-05-13 00:38:41


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I don't know if she's still at it, this paper was published in November 2012, but I do know that in August 2012 there was someone heavily trolling the KR Topix forum, asking all sorts of questions about fandom and morality and the such, under the pretext of writing a PhD thesis....
At the time it seemed fishy and trolly... but only now I connect the dots.

Mme, many, many, many thanks for your insider insights ! And thanks for sharing with us the memories from those days... it helps understand the context of this 'thesis' and it explains a bit its tone... it's so strange and bitter and weird and, well, bad. It feels as if she has/had a personal war against KR fandom. Or something :|

Thanks again for sharing the 'behind the scene' details.



MmeRenard
2017-05-14 07:30:53


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Thank you so much, Luca M!

At the time it felt SO crazy. Of course, people wanted to believe her, wanted to feel a special connection to Keanu.

That was almost certainly her on Topix, as well as UGossip, where there is plausible anonymity on both sites, in a way that there isn't on any legit sites. Those are also exactly the kind of people who are most likely to fall for that crap.

What you see in that "paper" is indeed her "PhD thesis" of which she boasted. At the time, I said things to the effect of "seems a little thin and light on facts for a PhD thesis (and I asked "huh, 'thesis'? you write a Master's thesis, you write a PhD dissertation which is MUCH longer - at least twice as long. with MANY more facts, and which is intended to provide new and important insights and study on a significant topic")

I'm pretty sure that "fandom is weird, and manipulation can make it weirder" is not, ahem, new or important or revelatory information.

She didn't like that. "It's different in Europe, America doesn't rule everything."

That's her "thesis" which she did clean up by removing fantasies, people's relating of their dreams, most scatological and lurid sexual detail, people's actual names (which she did at one time include in published papers, without consent).

She also really, really tried very hard - with, obviously some success - to convince people that Keanu's idea of a pleasant diversion was trolling the internet and messing with fans. She passed herself off as "Mr Reeves" in a whole bunch of ways.

I suspect that Keanu's true friends were well aware of this. I expect that, if he wanted, Rob Mailhouse would have some illuminating things to say, but I'm pretty sure that he wisely wants to avoid the subject.

It's not at all difficult to convince people that you're a celebrity on the internet. People are naive and gullible and eager to believe - not surprisingly - that they have a special relationship with a celebrity. That crap is potentially VERY dangerous - if the wrong obsessed person gets sucked into that, stalkers can show up in someone's library at 4AM...oh wait...

The simplest and probably most accurate reading of it is that she is a sociopath, hates to see others being happy and successful, wants to destroy that. She's blatantly jealous of Keanu's success and the fact that he's loved. Like Fool, she always tried to convince people that he is weird and not desrving of love and respect.

And that's just bullshit.

MmeRenard
2017-05-14 07:54:25


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This site dates the paper as 2014, interesting since all of this transpired in sometime around 1996 - 2000:
http://smit.vub.ac.be/Person/75/Shenja__van_der_Graaf


Lest you don't want to take my word for it (and you shouldn't!),
here's the "original document" from 1999 (now called an MA thesis, although anyone who can find evidence that she ever completed any graduate study is a better man than I am, Gunga Din):

http://www.shenja.org/Shenja_van_der_Graaf/playlist_files/Celebrity_culture1999.pdf

It's the much longer, much crazier, much more lurid and invasive version of the article referenced by Taluthah - from 18 years before.

It's also worth pointing out that there is NO third-party verifiable evidence that ANY of this is anything other than a pretty insane fiction. It couldn't be verified with any real people working in Hollywood unless someone actually had a congenial relationship with such people, and assuming that they would want to engage in that conversation. My best understanding is that people think she's crazy and probably dangerous, so best left alone. How useful. It's recycled articles, regurgitated snippets of interviews and rampant speculation.

And if nothing else creeps you out about this, what really did it for me from the get-go, WAY back when, was the phrase "unauthorized discourse / text / product."

LucaM
2017-05-14 15:36:34


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Yeah, I've read the thing from 1999... A preface which starts with 'How
many people can you fool? I don’t have an answer.' really sets the tone for the whole thing. :|

I found the 'Much Ado...' paper here https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2178482 where it's mentioned as Date Written: November 20, 2012 and Posted: 22 Nov 2012, but it's worth noting the first page of it says 'BOOK CHAPTER DRAFT – WORK IN PROGRESS
FORTHCOMING IN ASHGATE RESEARCH COMPANION (FAN CULTURE)' so I guess the whole book it was a chapter of was published/released in 2014...

Both papers say a lot more about the writer herself than about any 'objects of affection, my subject and the wannabe's-out-there' - to quote again her thesis.



MmeRenard
2017-05-14 18:19:07


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Indeed the preface does say it all. Her inference was always that that was a quote from Keanu - though never actually cited as such - when it became obvious that it was her way of being in the world.

I don't believe that the "book" was ever actually published. She apparently did publish (co-edit) another tome that appears on Amazon. The author notes are great - she "holds degrees in media, business and performing arts. She has spent time at Utrecht University, Leiden University, and MIT, and is affiliated with the Oxford Internet Institute, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, MIT’s Convergence Culture Consortium (C3), and the London School of Economics" Not, you'll notice, that any of those schools are mentioned as having granted said degrees.

I've "spent time at" Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, University of Vermont...etc. I have degrees from none of those schools.

And you're absolutely right, all of it says so very much about her than it says about anything and anyone else. None of it should be considered without an airsick bag handy.

Anakin McFly
2017-05-15 14:48:47

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This site dates the paper as 2014, interesting since all of this transpired in sometime around 1996 - 2000

She revised the paper - most notably to add in newer ongoings at UGossip, and a few selected quotes from WINM (which didn't exist back then).



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