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A Mormon housewife turned a fake diary into an enormous best-seller
- causality0 4y agoNot exactly a new phenomena. Remember "A Million Little Pieces"?
- astura 4y agoGo Ask Alice predates A Million Little Pieces by more than 3 decades.
- hprotagonist 4y agoAs a few ex-Mormons have pointed out, Sparks was not the first Mormon to publish a text ostensibly based on an original source that the rest of the world did not get to see. Hah!
- CoastalCoder 4y agoIt's pithy, but calling BS on each other's world views is probably the road to flagged comments.
- ck2 4y ago
- rayiner 4y ago> even worse suppressing women and minorities Christianity and faith that everyone was created equal in the eyes of God was essential to inventing the concept of racial equality at a time when science couldn’t prove that assertion. Put yourself in 1850–looking around at societies in the world as they existed then—and make a scientific case for racial equality powerful enough to convince hundreds of thousands of free people to sacrifice their lives for it. Even today there’s nowhere more zealously committed to the notion of racial equality than Christian countries.
- ck2 4y ago
- abdulhaq 4y agoAcross the history of man the greatest mass killings of people were instigated by atheists e.g Stalin who murdered millions simply because they were Christian. Most wars are tribal fights where the religion correlates to the tribe and it has little to no effect on causing the war. You even said yourself that it does the opposite, it placates it.
- rayiner 4y ago> Are you kidding me? You realize slavery, torture and beatings was justified based on the bible alone This isn’t a historically correct statement. Slavery has existed in myriad societies that don’t read the Bible. In Civil War era America, the Confederates sought to place themselves on the side of “science” and characterized the union as religious “zealots.” https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/cornerstone-speech https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/cornersto... What’s remarkable about Christian societies is that they ended slavery the way they did. To my knowledge there’s no other example of a society that tore itself apart and where people sacrificed by hundreds of thousands of their own for the freedom of a different group of people.
- bequanna 4y agoWhat an incredibly shallow and immature take on religion. Not everyone who chooses to be involved with a religion has an IQ lower than you or believes in magic. You’re missing something. Something important that religion provides for Billions of people.
- fumeux_fume 4y ago
- themodelplumber 4y agoThat's not true. The original people who saw it (with their spiritual senses) also claimed that others could know it was real (with their spiritual senses). If the world didn't get to see it, or can't see the literal face of, or a pointy appendage of God, or can't see the difference between this religion and every other religion that makes claims based on one's subjective spiritual senses, then that's a problem for them (and their obvious spiritual deficiency). Why does everyone leave out the important details??
- arise 4y agoWith all due respect, this is an extremely theological version of the Emperor's New Clothes: conveniently non-falsifiable and if anyone points it out, they're a bad person.
- cryptophreak 4y agoProbably because one man's important details is another's gibberish.
- shijie 4y ago> Why does everyone leave out the important details?? Most people are more interested in a narrative than they are the truth.
- bolt7469 4y agoTFA is blatantly wrong: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/three?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/th... https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/eight?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/ei...
- Forbo 4y agoThey only saw them with their "spiritual eyes". https://read.cesletter.org/witnesses/#second-sight https://read.cesletter.org/witnesses/#second-sight Former member, it hurts seeing everything that I " knew" to be true turn out to be complete falsehoods. I encourage you to read the sourced and cited first-party quotations. I'm sorry, and I hope nothing but the best for you and yours.
- dang 4y agoLet's not go into a religious flamewar please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- CoastalCoder 4y agoI'm surprised that the article characterizes her as straight-laced, given the pattern of duplicity.
- themodelplumber 4y agoBuried lede IMO: There's a TV movie of the book, starring Andy Griffith... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBxT53r2AlU&t=2447s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBxT53r2AlU&t=2447s ...and mustached William Shatner! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBxT53r2AlU&t=2997s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBxT53r2AlU&t=2997s > the state is estimated by some to boast a Ponzi scheme for every hundred thousand people Sorry but looking up the state population that's got to be way, way too low. I'd say 1:10k at the least! But so many of them are ad hoc and built on the back of business affinity relationships. (By the time you hear about them from your assigned ministering brother or sister, it's too late and the ground floor has been marbled over. :D)
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago>By the time you hear about them from your assigned ministering brother or sister, it's too late and the ground floor has been marbled over. I was working at a concrete making place, and during lunch break the chief was talking about getting in on a Ponzi scheme, and he said "It's a ponzi scheme but if you're getting in at the beginning it's a good idea." to which his main guys in our group nodded sagely and I masterfully managed to keep from laughing.
- dhosek 4y agoThe podcast You’re Wrong About recently did a three-part series on Go Ask Alice with Carmen Maria Machado. Episodes are here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1112270 https://www.buzzsprout.com/1112270 or pull them down in your favorite podcatcher.
- sn41 4y agoJust a tangential request: is there any curated playlist consisting of such good podcasts? I have a difficult time discovering interesting podcasts. (Maybe that's an interesting project)
- justinator 4y agoYou may also like YWA alumni Michael Hobbes' Maintenance Phase https://www.maintenancephase.com/ https://www.maintenancephase.com/ As well as You Are Good, also by Sarah https://www.podpage.com/you-are-good/ https://www.podpage.com/you-are-good/
- wanderingstan 4y agoYears ago I had a rough but working prototype where people could submit individual podcast episodes that would then get assembled into a “best of“ feed. Now that podcasts have taken off, maybe it’s time to dust that project off!
- dhosek 4y agoI’d thought of doing something like that myself ages ago. I had conceived of a curated feed that would alternate a brief introductory episode saying what was cool about what’s next in the feed and then the episode (served off the original podcast’s URL).
- jiayo 4y agoCBC Radio has a weekly program called Podcast Playlist: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastplaylist https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastplaylist
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- woodruffw 4y ago> Utah, reputed to be the fraud capital of America; the state is estimated by some to boast a Ponzi scheme for every hundred thousand people Small tangent, but does anybody in Utah have insight into why this might be? This is bewildering to me.
- lmm 4y agoA relatively close-knit, high-trust society, with a lot of housewives eager to make themselves some money in a socially acceptable way?
- pyuser583 4y agoYou’re describing Japan. Does Japan have pyramid schemes and MLM? I just watched the anime “Welcome to NHK” and there was an MLM subplot.
- przemub 4y agoYeah, it happens in Japan. Even more dangerous are new religious groups - like the Unification Church you'd probably heard about due to Abe's asassination.
- jstarfish 4y agoThe former prime minister was just gunned down in the street over his endorsement of one. Every insular culture is vulnerable to trust-exploiting schemes.
- lmm 4y agoI described it that way because I live in Japan and recognized the similarities :). Outright violent crime is very rare here, but there are a lot of scams.
- SomaticPirate 4y agoCompletely anecdotal but this might be related to the notion of it being the MLM capital as well. Most marry young and settle down quickly. The notion of a housewife being able to contribute monetarily is infatuating. This coupled with the fact that Mormons (typically) are trustworthy of insiders means frauds and MLMs can spread virally. Entire communities would get caught up in the latest herbal essence MLM.
- sva_ 4y ago
- halffaday 4y ago
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- teddyh 4y agoAntisemitism is a serious accusation. What is your proof?
- hnbad 4y agoYou already know the answer, but it's well-established consensus among historians that the Anne Frank diary is authentic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_a_Young_Girl#Authenticity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_a_Young_Girl#Auth... The conspiracy theory that it is fabricated is mostly pushed by fringe "historical revisionists" engaging in Holocaust denial. There are some Christian fundamentalists in the US who also peddle this narrative because the original unedited diary contains segments describing Anne Frank (a girl) feeling physical and romantic attraction towards other girls -- despite the glaring issue with this narrative being that her estate initially removed these sections from the published versions because they were uncomfortable with them. You don't need to play these games here. Pretending you're "just asking questions" to hide your political alignment is not working as well as you think and not nearly as clever as it makes you feel.
- teddyh 4y ago> You already know the answer No, I actually did not. I believed (and still do) that the diary is mostly true, with some editing and sanitizing being done for publication. I had heard that there was some minor controversy regarding those edits and omissions, and I assumed that the flippant post by user “halffaday” (who is not me, N.B.) was referring to that. > The conspiracy theory that it is fabricated is mostly pushed by fringe "historical revisionists" engaging in Holocaust denial. I was not aware of this. All I saw was that a joke about Anne Frank’s diary not being 100% accurate turn into an accusation of antisemitism, with no explanation. Not everyone is aware of all of these opinions which are apparently widely considered proxies for antisemitism, racism, etc. > You don't need to play these games here. Pretending you're "just asking questions" to hide your political alignment No everybody who just asks question is secretly a nazi.
- Enydosnes 4y agoVery interesting article and it's worth considering how even though we can easily recognise these stories as being laughably fake these days, it's worth keeping in mind that fearmongering stories like this continue to be peddled to people with certain prejudices, and the only thing that's really changed since then is its shape and approach
- WheelsAtLarge 4y agoBe careful with dismissing the general idea that drugs can lead to a miserable life since drugs can lead to complete misery. I was going down the street at my downtown the other day. I looked to the side, the side of the sidewalk, and saw someone that had lost all control of his life and was barely hanging on. He was sticking a needle in his arm and was shooting up. He looked like life had chewed him up and spit him out. Up to that point I had only seen it on TV or the movies. This was the first time I had seen it in real life. It was much uglier than I had ever thought it would be. It was shocking to see it. It's very sad that addiction can lead to such circumstances.
- bdavisx 4y ago>It was shocking to see it. It's very sad that addiction can lead to such circumstances. Perhaps circumstances lead to the drugs, how do you know that person's actual story?
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- donatj 4y agoSo strange. I had never heard of. Go ask Alice, and then last week I was listening to a 5-year-old podcast episode of "I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats" and they were talking about it.
- dudeinjapan 4y agoI went to a middle school were most of the teachers were (ex-) hippies. In 7th grade we had sex-ed which also covered various drugs. I remember my sex-ed teacher saying something like (unironically) "As supplemental reading, read 'Go Ask Alice'". I think the book was more or less accepted as near-truth/reality neither fully good nor fully evil, something akin to Hunter S. Thompson (this is the first time I'm hearing it's a crock.) In the same class we had an anti-drug speaker in his early 40s who told us his story: "After high school I lost my way in life, sailed around the world in a sailboat, did a bunch of strange drugs, and slept with 100s of beautiful women. But now I'm clean and my life sucks." My friends and I had finally found a role model.
- curiousgal 4y agoBaader–Meinhof phenomenon
- etcet 4y agoIt's because the book which is mentioned in the article, "Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries", was just released.
- donatj 4y agoFor this, yes, but it was a very old podcast episode.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bambax 4y agoThis is the end of TFA: > Emerson sees Sparks chiefly as an impostor, but she comes across as a true believer, both in evil and in her capacity to combat it by scaring teen-agers straight. Imposter vs. True Believer: evil schemer or naive righteous soccer mom... Mmm... Or maybe she was... an artist?! I find it quite shocking and incredible that still today, she's casually dismissed as a fabricator. Every fiction is a fabrication. That's what artists do; that's the original meaning of the word "poetry": to make [0]. The fact that publishers decided to market that fiction as a true testimonial is irrelevant. (It is mentioned in the article that the "impostor"/anonymous part was the idea of the publisher, and that Sparks only reluctantly agreed.) It's possible her ultimate motive was to save teenagers from the perils of drugs, but in the process she created works that obviously resonated with a lot of people. How hard would it be to respect her a little. [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-history-of-the-word-poet https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-history-of...
- fumeux_fume 4y agoShe found success in her time, but in retrospect and in a wider context her work is viewed negatively for obvious reasons. That doesn't seem shocking or incredible.
- LiquidSky 4y ago
- bambax 4y ago
- atoav 4y agoI agree with your characterization of fiction and poetry. There have been many writers who wrote fictional diaries (e.g. Max Frisch' Stiller) and other (real) diaries that entered the realm of literature (e.g. the diaries of Anne Frank). I'd say where most people would draw the line is when someone tries to sell something as autobiographic that has been clearly made up for moralist reasons, yet still lie about it's authenticity. This has nothing to do with the book, and everything to do with the person who pretends to have lived a live that they have not. In the end the artwork can sometimes be more wise, intelligent and impactful than the artist who made it. Yet the context the artist creates will always colour the reception.
- zasdffaa 4y agoI read 'go ask alice' as a teenager and even back then i found it blatantly fiction, watching a pretty-with-curls little darling degenerate into a sweary brat wasn't plausible. I don't like being lied to, not like this and not by the coppas (I'm a brit) who came round to our school to give us The Drugs Talk. In a limited sense, when I became an adult (and a lot later), I was less afraid to experiment with drugs because of the one-sidedness of my drugs so-called 'education'. I guess it worked on some other kids though.
- anodari 4y agoThe plot line remembered me 'Christiane F'. I thought it could be inspired her, but it is older.
- stevenjgarner 4y agoPaywalled : https://archive.ph/8aNLG https://archive.ph/8aNLG