I think most people probably know the type of members I'm talking about. The ones who are always in the chat-box, monopolizing and hijacking the conversation so it's always about them; the ones who take every opportunity to talk about themselves, etc. etc.

This girl (we'll call her Helga) used to join a lot of my RPs and I kid you not, the way she described her real life, she was a Mary-Sue to the max. When she joined one of my sites for the first time, she said everyone thought she was really hot and said she had a voice like Christina Aguilera and Kelly Clarkson. LOL. Then later on as she joined more sites, she told us that she lived in the Hamptons (yes, THE Hamptons), that she was in all advanced IB courses like Calculus, and that she was applying to Harvard and Princeton. Yet she was online every single day, and joining every Harry Potter site she could get her hands on. I'm not kidding. I would advertise my site, and she'd be there in the c-box. It was insane. I'm sure there's probably some crazy genius who could juggle all that, but ... if you're so rich, so smart, and so hot and talented... you'd think you'd spend a little less time on the computer RPing? IDK. I know people in IB programs, and they hardly ever have free time, so... lmao I have my doubts.

Then on my slash site, there was just this one member who... drove me crazy. He bragged all the time. ALL THE TIME. If the cbox wasn't centering around him, then he'd get all pouty and try and turn it back around so he could be obnoxious and brag about himself. I remember one time he wrote this paper for a sociology class or something (he was in college), and bragged about how amazing it was... So he posted it on the board, but no one read it or commented on it. LOL. I believe one of my admins googled sections of the paper actually, and found that some of the paragraphs were copied from blogs and articles and stuff. Hahaha. Idiot.

So that's my story of members who never quite bragging/lying. How 'bout chu?

Gaa, I hate people like that. I've never had anyone do what Helga did O_o That's extreme. I'm in college and dealing with publishing a book and a few other things, and I barely have time to rp on my own board.. Its insane if she's that high and is stuck in rp. *shrug* If you ask me, she's a faker looking for someone to look up to her in awe.

I have a member who likes to get in the cbox and try to outdo everyone. "Mine's bigger than yours" kind of person. If someone has a personality complex, his is worse. If someone's seen an awsome movie, he's seen one that's better. I was chatting in it yesterday, Telling someone about how I bought Assassin's Creed, and he got in talking about how bad the game was and how he liked this other game better.

It gets annoying, but I just put up with him. He's not doing anything bad, just kinda irks me a bit.

I can't count how many times I had that happen to me... It's like they don't know what to talk about or get a conversation going, so they start throwing in every detail of their own life.. which none of us can comprehend on why, nor care. XD

Though here is a question...

Have you ever had persay two members constantly talking about a j-pop band? Like... CONSTANTLY?! even go as far as creating a topic just for it?! Talk about ANNOYING! Me and several other members so could not understand the big "obsession" nor did we even try hurting ourselves on what the heck was the big deal about "them". I mean I have my obsessions... but I don't talk about it 24/7 nor do I want to confuse the crap out of anyone over something so... silly.

I very strongly dislike those members who brag about their sex lives all the time. I mean, we don't want to know allllll of that.

She's just overcompensating for her obvious flaws IRL.
Let her live out the fantasy online. It doesn't hurt anyone.

I more often encounter negative attention seekers in forums. There was one girl that was anorexic (or claimed to be) who would come on and talk about how she ate way too many calories and should probably go throw up. When we told her it was unhealthy, she tweaked and said "you're judging me".

She mentioned cutting herself a few times as well. =/

Hey, I think that was me....:p

Well, I guess I have been lucky not to have these kind of people on my boards. If I did I'd barely notice them, because...well, it's all about me.

Seriously though, I don't know that I'd give them much attention of any kind. It seems it's best to ignore that stuff. If it was really bothersome to others, then I'd probably PM them and tell them to tone it down. If it's someone with eating and cutting disorders, hell--I think I'd want some distance from that. I would tell them I'm sorry they have stuff going on but it doesn't belong in the c-box.

In one group I ran, I knew this girl who used to try to have sex with all the characters. And, outside of that, she'd never shut up about her sex life (which was probably either non-existant, or way too existant).

Another girl went emo-drama queen on me and was talking about how oh, she was going to kill herself, and how she cuuut, and how she'd been raped 14 times, once a year ever since she was fouuur .. which didn't make sense because she told me she was 16? LOL. Yeah. It was sooooo obvious she was lying. Rape just .. isn't anything to lie about. At all.

She said she was raped!?
Man, people get so wierd on the internet.

Although the nympho doesn't surprise me. There's always that one roleplayer on a forum that decides, 'since our characters are speaking to eachother, they have to have sex. Whooo cyber!'

Yeup, we've all dealt with those sorts of people. It's hard to escape them. The people who have so little friends/lives that they have to brag about themeselves or lie about things that never happened. I knew two guys like that, and one of them always tried to turn our RP's sexual. I've also known plenty of women who do things that people have explained above. I had to deal with one girl where my character and someone else's character were 'dating' and her character was always trying to steal (literally steal) the guy. And she was a bitch about it, and would even whine outside of the RP when people were mean to her character. There's been many other instances like this in my internet life, but I'm not going to go on about all of them.

What's even worse thatdealing with this on the internet is when you deal with it in reality! I do, and it's annoying because I can't escape her. Why, becuase she's my sister in law. And yes she does the whole "I was molested and raped, and I cut myself and stabbed myself and was abused and..." Why it makes me mad when she does that is because she has NO scars on her that would ever suggest anything like that.

My point - On the internet or in reality, these people are annoying and you can't escape them!

Don't even joke about that, RyanA; I despised that guy -- and the feeling was entirely mutual, haha. That made adminning fun. -___-;;

Oh yeah, I've gotten plenty of members who brag about their sex lives or all this other "cool" or "dangerous" stuff like eating disorders, drugs, parties, etc. Pretty sure I've had people post pictures of other people too - and lots of them. The thing is, people who constantly talk about stuff like that (or post pictures) are usually faking... If it's "part of your life," it wouldn't be something you'd feel the need to talk about all the time. Or if you really looked like that, I doubt you'd spam every "introduce yourself" thread. It's like, the more you post the more authentic you look? IDK, lol. Hope that makes sense.

What do you do if someone posts fake pictures, btw? It has nothing to do with RP and stuff, but I think it's pretty, idk... Indicative of someone's personality. Like, if they'll pretend to be someone else, they might steal applications or something.

Wow. After reading this thread, I think I should add a rule to my forum which states "Liars and big talkers with nasty attitudes will be banned"! Although I've never had someone like that on my sites, I know I wouldn't tolerate it. Especially not any bragging about eating disorders or any other major issue. That is absolutely sick, to lie about taking drugs or cutting yourself or making yourself throw up, that is really really REALLY sick. They probably don't realize how sick it is because they don't actually have to deal with stuff like that in real life. For example: what if, say, your father had bipolar disorder, and you constantly get treated to a member saying 'Oh ya I'm just feeling bipolar today i need to take my meds LOL' ? Or maybe you have self-image issues, and you get to see these pictures of utterly normal, beautiful girls who say 'I'm really ugly and I throw up to feel better' ? Or maybe you know someone who's been abused, and then someone you don't know decides to lie about getting hit?

Not. Funny.

And the sex life thing...get over yourself. Go watch porn or something.

OK, I'm getting worked up about this. For the picture thing, I would just get rid of posting pictures altogether. Make a rule that bans them, and if a member insists on posting a link anywhere, warn/ban them. It's pretty dumb to have pictures of yourself online anyways, fake or not. For the lying/big attitudes issue in general; 'get it off my board or you're gone.' If they're not lying about the issues, fine, I'll talk to them through PM or something, but not for all the other members to read. That's not respecting themselves, that's pity-mongering. Chances are, if you're willing to proclaim to the world that you cut yourself, you don't cut yourself. Chances are, if you tell everyone you're into heavy drugs and hit the booze too much... wait, how are you typing coherent thoughts?!

Gah! Stupid people! :angry:

Wow, that's all insane. We usually get some braggers but it's generally centered around writing and it makes me INSANE. Once we had this applicant who spent majority of the application process writing in the cbox about what an amazing writer they were and about how many programs they were in etc. etc. Then she goes on to announce she is done with her application.
And I read it...
and laugh very, very hard.
It was probably one of the most poorly written ones I'd ever seen. Like, for the amount of bragging she did I'm surprised she even knew what roleplaying was. The personality was in the first person and I'm fairly sure she was talking about herself, the appearance was mary sue to the max and the history was a few sentences that didn't make ANY sense.
Oh man, it was so bad. I didn't even know where to begin critiquing.
She got so mad when I didn't accept her right away, too, since she was "amazing".

[edit]
A little off topic but the "fake picture" thing reminds me of a girl who made a fake myspace and tried to pull off Alex Evans (Alex Heartbreaker, whatever) as her boyfriend or "Kyle". *snort* I recognized him right away, though.
"Uhmm that's not your boyfriend, it's a Canadian model."

In the immortal words of South Park.... "Dude... weak."

Using a model... XD

I never catch these things, though. I suppose it's generally evident from the people and their attitudes. I mean, I'm pretty sure I can tell a sound apple from a rotten one just by conversation, not by hunting down their photos, etc.

I do brag ^^ But I generally do so to scare off idiots. If they hate me, they won't bother me.

The Internet breeds drama. Make someone anonymous, and suddenly it's madness.

Things I've experienced in my RPGs:

- Two different players faking their own deaths. Seriously. One had another member of the group tell us he died in a car crash, then resurfaced a year or two later. Another faked leukemia, then created another screenname which belonged to his "friend" and broke the bad news to me. There are far better ways to say you just don't want to be in the game anymore, guys.
- Numerous players lying about their ages. No big deal, really, because there are worse things out there. But the biggest offender made herself older, changed her name and said she was pregnant. The photo she gave us of her and her baby was her and her baby nephew. I don't need to know your name or how old you are, but if you want to build an Internet friendship then spare me the B.S.
- Two players who masqueraded as people of the opposite gender. One in particular was very blatant about it, and "broke" the news to us by using a photo of himself as his character's avatar. Completely pointless.

I can think of a few others, but the point is that if you put people online and give them the power of being someone -- anyone -- other than who they actually are, well... I think we all know the story. It's a bit of a stereotype, of course, but combine those factors with younger folks especially and it is oftentimes that much worse.

The most any of us can do is shrug and get on with our lives. Don't dignify it with recognition if you don't have to.

C no likie the Dramawhores

Death is something that I DO NOT joke around about. I knew a girl once from online who died, but that's only because a few of us lived in the same area and saw the obit. Yes, it was a car crash...she was sideswiped by a drunk driver. It was sad, and quite a few members of the rp who knew said person were pretty upset over it. To blatantly use something that serious for your own personal gratification or to gain sympathy is just sick...mental issues much?

As for the pitiful stories about being raped,abused, etc...I always thought it would be funny to pretend that I've reported them to some made-up protection agencey. Like I was so concerned for their suffering that I went out of my way to report them to a child protection service. Trust me...people who are abused don't come out and speak of it like that. I've seen kids who were abused and usually they say everything except that somebody else did that to them. I've been required to report a few cases and believe me...it's not pretty.

And being in all AP classes and having time to do everything...YEAH RIGHT. I have two AP courses this year -Calc AB and Chem- and they practically take up almost all my time. Our Chem professor even gave us half a period just to catch up on assignments it's so intensive. As for applying to Harvard and Princeton...pfft. Tons of people apply...does that mean they exactly get it?

Sounds like a bunch of people whose mommies and daddies didn't hug them when they were little.

Yeah, seriously. The people who are actually in AP classes are barely ever on.

Most definately! I have ONE AP course this term (and last) and because I choose to go online, I'm up until like 1 in the AM doing homework, and that's just one. People make me sick...

As for faking death, I knew a guy who told us that his brother died and that's why he was gone off the site for a long time. Too bad I saved an earlier convo in which he said he was an only child...

If you don't have the guts to admit you just left, then don't come back xD!

I had this one girl on my site. I know that people say when others fake it doesn't hurt anyone; but it does in a sense. She was.. eh. We all knew she wasn't real, though. So no one really got hurt. But I figured I was safe from that bs on my own forum. I spent a year talking to someone who wasn't who they said they were at all; they lied and made me worry and it wasn't exactly fun.
But that's beside the point :p

The girl on my site said a lot of BS. She told us she was in some.. boarding school? And was basically an attention whore. Someone confronted me about her from another site; apparently she had cancer too. That one just pixxed me off at the time.

Anyway. By the time we actually had proof ('her' horse was in fact a random horse from texas..) I'd already got mad and told her off in the cbox. She left after that. Oh well. I figured better would come from a site like FiD.

As for pictures; I always post pictures of myself. And I do bring my personal life into my cbox and site sometimes, but I think that's 'cause a lot of the people on there I've known at least a year, some more. Some are like family to me. And sometimes I need that support. And I just like taking pictures of myself :p -pretty-

Faking death is the worst way out >.> I've seen people who have died and no one believed it when they were told. 'cause people lie about those things. But the reality is some people don't.

Yeah, it's just sad and pathetic. You just wish people would tell the truth.

Oh yeah, definitely. This RP that I'm on right now? The mod is constantly bragging about how awesome he is and how every girl just wants to fall into bed with him. He acts like he owns the whole town we're in and he bosses everyone around. He does manly things, like ride expensive horses and get into fist-fights. To top it all off, he's got a total obsession about women's panties. He absolutely will not shut up about them!

He's so annoying! GAH! :p

*shoves Zippy down flight of stairs*

It's one little pantie collection...geez...(she actually really is talking about my character--not me--just so we are all clear)

Anyway, the more I read these posts, the more I see these people who seek out attention as sort of sad and creative. I mean, if you don't have the life you want, you invent one. It's a survival skill. Or you lie about dramatic things to get attention. Why do they need that sort of attention is anyone's guess.

No one really does know what goes on with another person. We only see the one side they are offering up. I am not saying that I'd spend a whole lot of time playing armchair therapist to them, but I think you have to approach this with a little more compassion.

If you set the ground rules on your board before you open, enforce evenly and fairly and address issues immediately when they arise, you should be able to temper this disruptive behavior or escort the member off your board.

LOL, you are too funny. Hit a nerve there, did I?

RyanA is absolutely right. Some people just invent, invent, invent a life because it must be better than the crappy situation they're in and it's a sort of escape.

But I've no patience for anyone like that and if they think their life is so hellish and they crave attention like neglected children, they need to turn towards CNN and watch Ethiopians with real issues.

I knew this one person who would not shut up about her characters and how cool her posts were and she'd IM/PM me to read how "ever so awesome" her posts and mini plots were. And I wanted to beat her with my mouse. Somehow, every conversation just had to have a clip of what was happening in the world of her characters and mind you, everything was so dramatic and unoriginal. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I couldn't care less about whose brother was going to rape who.

And going to the rape situation...Another person, instead of pretending to say that she had been raped...a relative of hers in truth had suffered the trauma. And this girl roleplayed rape like it was just another introduction thread. It greatly disturbed me when she told me this -- and I know I am possibly breaking the trust she put on me by telling you all this but at the same time...she doesn't (to me) value her relative's life very much if she's out and about suggesting to every male character if they could have some sort of sex/rape rp together.

I don't know. Members and their braggings....ugh...

Good topic btw, Sunday! ^^

Wait. Taking AP courses is somehow cool now? I took four in highschool and my friends called me an idiot. (They were right.)

On another note, I can happily say that even though I've encountered this, those cases weren't anywhere near as melodramatic as some of the ones described here. I think the worst was swapping genders so it was pretty low key.

haha the only really braggy person on SC is Sam... LOL ILY <333

But seriously... I do know a few people that brag about their RPing skills, etc. etc., but I have yet to meet someone who was all mopey and melodramatic... WAIT. Ex-boyfriend all the way. Okay, besides him... oh and my step-sister IRL (who used to go around and tell people that her dad was starving her and wouldn't buy any food and he was never home, blah blah... and then would go home and have three corndogs for an afternoon snack <_< yeahhh)

I feel for you guys that have to put up with this (and just watch, now that I've said I don't have any problems with this, I'll get someone on SC like this tomorrow xD). That whole pretending to die and be raped stuff is really not cool.

<sub>i hate c-box whores.
or attention whores in general.

i admit i might not alway jump in a conversation.
and when i do it might not always help move it along
but sadly that's my quirky personality.

however there are those who ALWAYS have to
post something like OMG there's a bug.
OMG blah blah. it's really unnecessary.

i also dislike when people start posting
pictures OF themselves and are like
i'm not pretty blah blah... when
hmmm of course they are!

i guess that's sort of like bragging.</sub>

lol, C-box whores. xD, Nice subject.

I've only encountered emos luckily. No braggarts. I wouldn't tolerate that well as an admin...lulz, I tend to say what comes right to mind. xD

I encourage people to be sociable, if I see an issue arising (because I know quite a few people on a personal level or strive to) I deal with it swiftly. I hate that crap. Attention-seeking, pity parties and all that nonsense... Useless.

I know life sucks, thank you. I don't need to hear your BS because I have enough of my own, kkthx. xD, These people that fish for sympathy when they don't need it really get to me. lulz, Because it's usually minor stuff they're blowing way out proportion.

But meh, what can y'do? Some of 'em actually RP with some skill. xD

If an attention whore member is good enough to make you strangle them, what to say when the admins are the attention whores? The ones who say 'no Mary Sue types allowed', but then, their characters are 6000 years old, uber powerful and invented the whole mankind?

The 'mine is bigger and better' kind is enough to drive a person into drinking (or peeing themselves laughing at the mediocrity of said individual). Though what I absolutely do not tolerate is people wanting attention by saying they have cancer, been raped or other things of the sort. It's below any moral standard to do that. There are other ways to drag attention to oneself (write a good post, be the kind of member who honestly adds to the community, instead of loading it with gibberish nobody cares about or needs to know, and so on), if attention is really all that important to the seeker.