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)
Okay, take a deep breath. This isn't the end of the world. It's terribly creepy, but it's not the end of the world. They are just pictures. Your kids won't be scarred for life. Tell yourself that, help yourself calm down.
I know how bad it feels when you literally cannot control things. But, chalk this up to some learning, you can start watermarking all of your pictures which will help some. And you just tell yourself, they are just pictures, you'll do your best to fight this sort of thing, but in the end, you are going to be okay.
I had some pictures stolen before and I tried my hardest to put an end to it, and in the end I could not catch the person or get the whole situation to stop. That person was being much more sneaky, and going into chat rooms and claiming they were me, and then handing out pictures. It was creepy. And I couldn't stop it, because I couldn't catch them, and even if I could catch them I wouldn't have been able to find the pertinent information for police reports. But eventually they got bored and wandered away.
So you do what you can to protect yourself, and you try to remind yourself that it's just pictures. It's not like they kidnapped your kids, or set your house on fire. This person is insane and has stolen some pictures.
Good luck, and I hope you can get this resolved.
Oh Katie, I am so sorry this is happening to you. I don't understand how someone could think that this is okay. It's so beyond me. I so enjoy your blog and hope that you find a way to work around this because I would really miss reading it, but I would totally understand if this causes you to never want to blog again. Best of wishes to you and your family!
This is really gross. It's not easy to share your life with the rest of the world in such a public forum as the internet, and I hate when creepos like this person break the trust we have when we do it.
I'm so sorry. :(
Just wanted to show you my support as well. Will be sending positive thoughts your way in hope that this will be resolved quickly.
Katie,
I'm so sorry this is happening to you. I can't imagine the amount of disturbance you must be feeling. This is NOT a form of flattery, it's outright out-landish!
I'm praying for you and that this gets resolved VERY quickly.
Wow. So creepy and weird. All the hairs on my arm are standing up. Its a slippery slope trying to decide between being open and creative and expressing yourself through pictures and being private and closed off. The online world is wonderful in that you can find common people with common interests and create a community that you would have otherwise never had access to. But the fact remains that there are people out there who have less than the best intentions at heart. I am guilty of posting pictures of my kids out there and I always wonder just a little if I am giving away too much.
I certainly hope this is over soon. I do still see her stuff up at the moment. I, too, noticed that she/he may not be from around here. I'm just amazed at the people that would friend her on FB?! People just accept without even thinking twice about whether they really know this person or not. I certainly hope this is over for you soon enough.
ps- I also flagged her on flickr.
Oh Katie, I'm so sorry for you. This person is repugnant. The world is full of crazies but remember there are tons of people who have your back, even if you don't know us.
katie this is really really horrible and i feel really bad because i'm sure no matter how you try, this bad feeling will linger with you for weeks, and that is a really terrible thing.
wish i could give you a hug.
you are an amazingly talented person with many amazing talents and gifts and it is a real shame for someone to try and take your wonderful things and claim them as their own.
**happy birthday eve, you are one lucky little girl to have the parents you do!
Dear Katie, I found your blog recently and really enjoy reading it! This is just horrible and I hope it all gets sorted out quickly.
All the best
Silvia
This is terrible. The worst part is that they seem ignorant. They can't even write a complete sentence, and you can tell by the captions on flicker that they were not written by you. How awful. I am so sorry.
- your loyal reader
Oh, yuck! I am so sorry you have to deal with this. Your blog is fantastic, and it is so sad that someone would take the wonderful stuff that you put out here and do something so weird and creepy with it. I hope everything gets resolved as quickly as possible.
I went to Flickr to check it out and leave a complaint, and while I was looking all her photos disappeared. Good! How nasty for you! I wouldn't blame you at all if you got a little (or a whole lot!) protective of your girls. But please don't give up blogging! There are lots of us nice people out here who love reading your posts. I'm going to go see about her Facebook now.
She doesn't seem to be on Facebook. I hope they've already tossed her.
Ew. I would contact Facebook and flickr to have the images removed and her accounts suspended...I wouldn't wait for her action since she is clearly not a person who understands boundaries and appropriateness.
Wow. I'm a little shocked and confused that someone would go to such lengths - for what purpose? I've never commented on your blog before, but this is just too weird. I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this and hope you continue to write and inspire others. Hope you get it resolved soon.
Holy! I hope you get this resolved ASAP. He/she clearly wants to get to you. If possible, you should get their IP address and report them to their provider for online harassment/stalking. They should cancel their account.
((((Katie))))
The kid thing really pushes it over the edge for me. Honestly. I wonder if people THINK at all anymore sometimes.
Much love coming your way from me in the meantime.
katie,
i'm so frustrated and heartbroken for you; you've done such amazing work and been so open in sharing it and snapshots into your world. and i'm sorry and sickened that someone betrayed that trust. i appreciate so much the inspiration i've received from everything you've done, and i hope that the closure of this incident comes quickly and with a satisfactory conclusion from your standpoint.
good luck,
carrie
!!HOORAY for quick resolution -- but GOODNESS, how CREEPY!!
I hope this event doesn't cause you to disappear from bloggyblogland; even if it means you won't be posting any more photos of your adorable girls.....
Good luck with the party planning! :o)
Just an FYI, I've read that this kind of thing is very common overseas (I cannot for the life of me find any of the links to those articles now though). People use content from American blogs and then start their own, making up all kinds of stories to go along with pictures, etc. Maybe you could consider water marking your photos?
:( very creepy indeed. i'm sorry. i can't imagine how violated you must feel.
Hi Katie,
I found her on facebook and flagged her. Looks like her flickr pictures are already down! We all love you very much and are happy to rally behind you to ensure quick resolution. Your family is beautiful and I know we all love reading about your adventures! Please do keep blogging!
I'm so sorry. As a relatively new reader, I have really enjoyed the glimpses into your family through the blog -- and have found them very inspiring for bringing more creativity and celebration of family into my own life.
I hope you will keep posting in a way that makes you feel safe and comfortable.
Definitely creepy. I can't figure out why someone would pretend to be someone else? Is yours the life they wish they had? Is this to purposely weird you out? Does someone have something against you? I just don't get it.
Unfortunately, posting our lives on the internet leaves them open to everyone... But I am terribly sorry this happened to you! =[
Hi, I've been reading your blog for a while but I'm not a big commenter. I had to break that to tell you how sad and creepy I find that. I can't imagine how violated I'd feel if someone were to post pictures of my daughter as their own and it's upsetting that you have to go through that.