I’m not sure about you, but I’ve encountered my share of fake profiles over the years. The internet is like a vase universe, at least in my opinion it is. There is so much to do on there and probably over a billion different websites to make accounts on. Within those websites, there are at least thousands of fake profiles.
Facebook, for an example, is probably one of the top most sites to create a fake profile. I have approximately 337 friends on Facebook. Within my friend count, I have spotted at least around 9 fake profiles. The majority of them use “normal” people pictures, but two of them use actual celebrity pictures. What makes the situation even more than what it is there are people in their friends list that actually are gullible enough to believe they are the real deal. This is referring to the “celebrity” profiles.
In 2012, I became friends with a guy online name Dak-ho Lee. He was a quiet guy, who rarely would say too much. The type of person that would say no more than five words (this was when I first met him). Anyways, as weeks went on, Lee and I became friends with some other women in this group we are members of (AMBWP if anyone was curious). We formed sort of like a clique. In total (in the beginning), there was six people (there were others later). Anyways, Lee informed us that he was going to try out for the SM Entertainment (or YG, it was one of companies). During the time, I thought it was a bit strange but I never voiced my thoughts on. Lee eventually made it through and became a trainee. Now, I wasn’t into the whole K-Pop thing because at the time, I didn’t listen to Korean music and I knew nothing about the company he auditioned for. In my mind, I was just going to be supportive a friend.
However, he made it into a group and posted a picture of himself, it looked nothing like him and that was the moment I began to doubt him. I believe Lee knew the picture looked strange, because he mentioned that it looked nothing like him due to the over usage of photoshop. Our friends started to refer to the picture as “Vamp Dak” because he was so pale in the photo and it reminded them of a vampire.
When a few weeks went by, Lee started to mention his friends a lot, mostly the ones that auditioned with him and were in his group. The names he mentioned mostly were “Kim Baek”, “Yune”, “Kyle” and someone named “Jun”. So anyways, I’m going to skip a lot of detail, because some things aren’t my story to tell. What I will say is that, Kim Baek was one of the main friends of Lee that conversed with us the most. When something happened (I can’t remember what it was exactly) Kim Baek and Lee were in different groups and I noticed that their pictures would change a LOT. Also, they would post music videos of their group and training videos. It became obvious to me that they were fake.
The only thing was, I didn’t want to say anything because I knew my friends thought they were real. I felt as though, if I were to tell them what I thought they would never believe me. So, I kept it to myself and only told two people.
Fast-forwarding (because this is too long of a story to tell), I confronted Lee when I found prove that he was stealing pictures. He seemed very calm about it, but I could tell he wanted to probably tell the whole truth, but he did not. Instead, he told me that he did in fact steal some pictures and that he just wanted to seem cool. He only did it for the popularity (which he did become very popular, might I add, both him and Kim Baek). Lee then told me that he is who he says he is and yada, yada, yada. I still didn’t believe him, but I left things the way they were. I figured no matter how long it took, the truth would reveal itself soon.
Lee started to disappear from Facebook and Kim Baek became the popular one. He would post pictures of himself all the time, but the pictures were of another K-Pop idol that isn’t really famous…
This is the group Kim Baek said he was in.
Kim Baek portrayed himself as the singer Hansaem
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| A picture “Kim Baek used of the real “Seo Han Saem” |
Year 2013 is when the truth finally came out. As it turns out, the person controlling Lee and Kim Baek’s accounts (along with maybe 15 other profiles) was a girl. She said that she did it for her novel or a paper for college. Honestly, I doubt it was for her novel or college.
In my mind, people create fake profiles for the following reasons:
Ø Boredom
Ø Wanting to be popular
Ø Seeking attention (almost the same as the above)
Ø Feels insecure about themselves
Ø Have no friends
Ø Wanting to create a fantasy life they wish they had
Ø Revenge on a certain person or people
I won’t mention her real name, but let’s just say she had the gullible people really fooled. She had me fooled for a few weeks when I first met Lee. However, after I saw that “Vamp Dak” photo of his, I knew right away that “Lee” was a fake profile.
Fake profiles are always going to be online. You can try to ban them or isolate them, it doesn’t matter. They’ll always be around. I first experienced my first fake profile encounter in 2008 on MySpace. Since then, I’ve inherited an keen eye on false profiles, due to my observant personality.
The only thing is, I don’t like confronting these profiles or even voicing my thoughts about them to others. This is because I do not line online drama. I think it’s pointless to argue with someone online when you don’t know the person and probably will never see them face to face. It’s just someone on the other side of the computer screen. It’s okay if you want to defend yourself or a family member or whatever, but pointless arguing is stupid. Sorry if you’re the type to argue online, it’s my truth on how I feel about it.
Some of the people “Lee” used for his pictures, I’m not sure who they all were because they were different photos. Kim Baek also used different pictures in the beginning, but then started to use a specific person. His name is Hanseum. He is from the group called, F1rst. I’m not sure if any of you ever heard of them before, but let’s just say that group became very popular in the Asian Men Black Women Persuasion group and on YouTube. Another thing is, one of my old Korean friends told me that the name “Dak-ho Lee” didn’t sound like an Korean name, at least not to his knowledge.
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| This is F1rst |
Since the exposure, all of the fake profiles are still standing (with the exception of Lee’s). The girl who controlled the profiles also is still on Facebook. I highly doubt she cared about what she did, because in my mind I think she thinks she did nothing wrong. Maybe to her it was all fun. Who knows? Either way, she upset a few people by what she did. She didn’t upset me because I knew the truth for a year. I believe the ones that were invested into these profiles were more maddened by it.
What do you think about fake profiles online? There is so much deception online that it’s really hard to trust someone unless you use a webcam to speak with them.
I’m pretty sure the TV show “Catfish” has shaved the wool off of people’s eyes, because let’s face it, there are thousands of gullible people online that are fooled every day.
Panda Ninja 