TO THE CREEPY IMPOSTER
Dear Facebook and Flickr user Makena Becker. you are not me. those photos are not yours. and those children certainly aren't yours either. your creepiness has me reeling. you have five hours to remove all my photos, all my words, and all your really skeevy claims to be someone you are not before i take legal action. you have infringed on my copyright. and i am pretty freakin' ticked off and grossed out by it.
thank you to reader paola for letting me know about this.
i would have loved to keep this a lot more vague and focused more on the idea of creating your own life, how figuring out who you are, little by little, and being true to that potential and the people you love is what makes life really great. and i think the higher road is to maybe leave names off.. but i can't. this is just too weird and violating and there is no possible explanation i can think of where someone would do this "innocently." if you have an idea, i'd love to hear it. i'd love to have something to wet the fury burning in my chest.
until then, i've got a birthday party to prepare for.
also: i have operated this blog the same way i try to live my life- based in faith and happiness and expecting the good rather than fearing and expecting the worst. this is not the worst, but it is really really weird. and i may need to adjust things around here for awhile until i figure this out..
ADDED: dear people (the non creepy ones), i love you. i sincerely do. i wish you were all here in person. i would hug you and thank you, wipe away my angry tears and take you to the park for a big picnic. we'd eat fruit, watch kids run around, soak up the sun and celebrate life (and the fact that the pictures were all taken down! hooray!!). after getting in our fill of spring at the park, you'd help me try to foster a little bit of sympathy and a little understanding for those who do things that aren't right, but then we'd let it go and move on... and after all that i'd try to sucker you into helping me make cupcakes and clean and decorate for tomorrow's party.. i've got a lot to do and am suddenly sooo very tired.
thank you again. truly.
xoxoxo
Friday, March 19, 2010 at 11:02AM
Reader Comments (537)
I loved your blog, it was so sunny, fun and inspirational to read. I hope you eventually decide to continue posting, but in the meantime I just wanted to add another voice to all the others telling you you're greatly missed!
i can't believe this happened to you!
and i'm really sad that you're not around anymore :(
HI, something similar happened to me once and it freaked me out. Someone was using my daughter's photogrpahs and saying (in their blog) that she was their daughter. It was horrible. I remember how violated I felt. It made me go all private and I did not feel like being so open anymore. That is what is so sad, its that they win somehow, because they rob us of our tranquility. I see that you haven't posted since. I hope you do come back, I got to your blog recently and I enjoy your designs and your stories.
I hope you are feeling better.
Warm wishes from South America.... md
I was brought to your lovely little blog by way of Made By Rae. I am so very sorry. I have very little words for the horror of all this - I just cannot imagine what you've been going through. How fortunate that someone noticed and informed you - truly.
I keep checking back to see if you are around - miss reading your posts.
was an article I liked. Thanks for sharing....
that was way too creepy and not cool AT ALL! and now you're not around anymore and I miss it!
I hope you come back, too.... :-)
In the meantime, THANK YOU for all the creative things you've shared so sweetly....my family has very much enjoyed and appreciated things like the hymn garlands, for example.
Best wishes for an easy summer!
me and juniper hope you're coming back, hello from berlin!
I found you by accident from "Made By Rae" and read this post. I'm so sorry this happened to you. It happened to me too. I shared a couple pictures of my newborn son on a popular pregnancy forum 6 years ago. It never occurred to me then that anyone would steal pictures. The freak that took mine renamed my child and wrote her own birth story about him and posted it on a different website/forum. Thankfully someone on the forum I shared the picture on, frequented the forum she posted on and alerted me of it. Talk about scary! It makes you physically ill :( From then on the only place I share pictures is on my Facebook with a small select trusted few. The only exception I made to my rule was this past December I had my 3rd baby, and thru the pregnancy chatted and became friends with ladies due in December. I wanted to share at least one picture of my little one when she was born, so I put a faint but visible watermark ALL OVER the picture so that if anyone tried to steal it, it'd have my screen name/handle all over it and would be hard for anyone to want to use or steal. You might consider that if you still want to post pictures...I did my watermark like this picture: http://shareme.com/images/large/Watermark_Studio-99155.jpg just all over it but still so you could see the picture.
I hope you've found some peace since this happened. I haven't checked out your blog to see if you have, I just wanted to quickly say how you're not alone...it's happened to me and probably lots more very proud but protective mama's.
Take care :)
jp
Oh my! This incident and this 'person' is absolutely disgusting!!! How does a person even think to do such a thing?
it really is a horrible thing to happen to you but thank you for posting about it. I have now decided to keep the personal photos to FB and skip them on my blog!
Hope you won't stop blogging though!
xx
Veronika
This is awful you poor thing, I'm sorry - I love you blog even though I'm not a mommy I was actually just visiting to recommend a friend of mine to check it out and read this creepiness. :(
mi dispiace molto che sia successo tutto ciò, ma il tuo è un blog molto bello, che ho scoperto per caso e che vengo spesso a visitare. Vorrei tanto trovare nuovi post. ti abbraccio.
So, this might not be the place to put this, but I really love the post called "Why Not" Those 2 dresses you made were adorable and I was wondering how to make my own. Do you sell your patterns?
I think it' time to say good-bye to your blog. I understand your reason. But I always look and hope there is a new message, a new idea, a new statement something like that. Mmmmh, and now?? You have a lot of fans around the word and we wish you just the best und we love you. But please give us a short answer - what do you think about your blog in the future. It' s going on or
you say "no way, we closed the blog forever!" :-(
We cross our fingers and hope it will be going on.
Please come back - we all love you so much and that freak is well and truly gone. I can imagine it was truly scary but don't let her take your personality and joie de vivre away. She wins if you do. xxxxx
Hi Katie, I miss reading you. Love from Germany. Emma.
Post your work. Don't post your personal pics. There are a lot of psychopaths on the internet.
Sandy
i've never ever posted a comment on the internet before....i periodically check to see if you're back & was so disappointed today that i had to tell you, i miss your blog. please come back when you're ready. emma in sydney
I miss you, too, Katie! I understand why you've taken a break, but didn't realise how much I loved hearing how you managed your life and family until you've gone.
Take care and I hope you're ok.
Kate from Sydney
Hi there, i'm so sorry to read this awful story!
I was just cleaning up all the URL's in my 'favorites' and checked yours out.
Obviously it's been a while since my last visit here.
I really hope you're ok, take all the time you need, this is truly freaky!!
Good luck from the Netherlands
Just wanted to add my voice to the others - I'm so sorry for what happened, it must have felt like such a violation. Your blog was wonderful, inspirational and made me incredibly happy everytime I checked in. Take your time and best wishes.
dear katie-- i miss your blog. do you have a new one?
I was just thinking, maybe you'd come back if the post hit 350 comments. So here's mine. I miss you, I understand why you'd leave, and I wish there were a way you could come back and post things that wouldn't reveal too much about your details or your kids. Because I like your style, and I like your writing, and I'm inspired by your last-minute sewing.
Mostly, though, I just hope you're all safe and well. Know you were loved here for whatever time you felt able to be here.
Thank you for that.
This still makes me so sad. You are in fact greatly missed. :(