so that Dailymail article

found it when trying to research diving weights (lol?)
was probably discussed way back then here too.

the one with all the dramallama of Mermania, so I'm not linking it.

what got me were these lines

Quote:

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There is a community of people who identify as half-human, half-fish

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the very first line of the article, and in the second paragraph:

Quote:

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it is no surprise then that groups of people across America – and the world – are drawn to these mythological creatures, eager to identify as half-human, half fish.

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like, wth?
what was the writer on?
I'm willing to bet at least 97% of mers anywhere identify as the guy/gal with the prettiest tail costume. lol

seriously, where does this identity nonsense come from?

Dont even get me started with this, it's just absolutely crackers all this gender neutral, etc lol

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[QUOTE=Echidna;










like, wth?
what was the writer on?
I'm willing to bet at least 97% of mers anywhere identify as the guy/gal with the prettiest tail costume. lol

[/QUOTE]:lol::lol::lol:

It’s comic gold if you look up that writer name. She asked on a reborn baby forum for “research” into their lifestyle and they called her out on it. They even using THAT article as an example that the writer will do to them that the writer did to us.


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WOW. But it's amusing as heck. And hopefully no one will take it at all seriously.

...still it makes me think of: https://youtu.be/5WNzPxK0XRY

there should be some penalty for writers producing slanderous fake articles.
She made it sound like the community is made up of nutcases, drug users and criminals...

sadly, these kind of things happen.
In some cases, slander writers are even paid behind the scenes to do exactly that; make the people they are writing about look bad.

There was a dude in Germany who was paid to suck up to a community of Lyme victims and then make a movie about them in the vein of "Lyme disease does not exist; look at these nutjobs here lol!"
He got several prizes and accolades for that sleight, too.
Humans suck.

wow... I googled Daily Mail and all I found was a pretty cool article about a professional mermaid... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...l-mermaid.html

:lol: Well, actually, I grew up on Sea Hunt, Flipper and Jacques Cousteau, so not sure if dolphin or scuba doo...

Found the article...

Oh duh... a community of humans has a dark side... duh...

did we really need an article?

No. We just need really awesome people like a few I've encountered who counter bullying and trolls with humor, light, and serious blocking. Shout out to Courtney Mermaid and theonering.net for showing some great positive energy in countering idiots...

Um, yeah, that article had no reason to exist.

It is not real news. It does not solve any problems (like throwing light on bullying or putting forth solutions to it). It is one sided, showing only a nutcase side of one community. It is basically the kind of stupid gossip/draaaaaaaaaamma I totally avoided in high school because it's just... stupid. A waste of time. A drain of energy.

I've been part of several living history groups (the Society for Creative Anachronisms may ring a bell with some) and sci-fi fandom. And most people are having a good time, exercising their imaginations and intelligence and crafts and such. But occasionally, due to basic Human Nature, you get the annoying person who lives for drama because perhaps they have no power in their real life. Energy "vampires".

Using civil discourse and ...well...basic love... we can solve some of these issues. We surely don't need a sad deficient "writer" creating pointless drama to feed their own ego.

They exaggerate details, stretch the truth, or outright make stuff up to create a more dramatic and exciting article. "These people dress up like mermaids", it's a bit weird, but not harmful or overly bizarre. It's strange, but far from scandalous. "These people truly think that they're mermaids!", wow, those people are outright crazy! What's wrong with them?!

I really *wish* this wasn't brought up again, considering it was done maliciously, does nothing to help the community, and is 2+ years old. (and was previously discussed on here when it happened) Plus it perpetuates lies and a very dangerous narrative.

So here's the context of the article.

A person was banned from the event, this was basically their retribution. The author was high school friends with the 'reporter'. The reported preyed on people. She went around to folks who had various special needs and tried to coerce them into saying things, and it left them extremely upset.

On more than one occasion she tried to film/photograph/interview children without parental knowledge or presence, and my husband who was our HR person confronted her about this.

While I was on the pool deck she approached me to ask her to point out people who really believed they were "trans-species" or actually part fish, and I got extremely curt with her and told her not to exploit our guests. I told her this was a family-friendly fun event (keep in mind this was the same weekend Trump was inaugurated, and the KKK were extremely active in this state, and they reversed their bathroom law for transfolks) and she avoided me the whole weekend after that. (But still wrote about me, without my chance to say anything about it)

I personally called the police and did NOT call 911. So these claims about a 911 call are the reporter spinning it. I called to ask what we should do considering the person was harassing people in the hallways (folks who have already gone on to document their stories here) and asked if the police could come warn this person or help us in any way. I have the original police report file # and most of what the reporter put in this, is fabricated (description of clothing, saying that we cancelled the police, or even just the claim it was 911- we called the non-emergency number)

The reporter would get her photographer to photograph things out of context. There's an image of two mermaids parted just after hugging, and this was spun like they had a fight.

The video of me, is me dropping my phone, picking it up, my husband bracing me because I was suffering from a concussion and he knew I'd be dizzy on the way up so he walked with me for a few steps. No altercation. No "being escorted by security etc" (security = my husband, lol)

The reporter was extremely insistent on spinning the "drama" narrative, and the "freak" narrative. She was also extremely persistent in pursuing us and I went on record saying the Daily Mail was a bad choice for Mermania but we pretty much couldn't keep this woman away. She called all our venues.

This was a mentally ill person's retribution for being told no, and them following through on the very behaviour they were banned for. They had threatened us previously that they would do this - bring in a friend to write a story how they wanted it. But in the end, I think it backfired and looked pretty bad on them.

The reporter also harassed our special guest Philo. She cornered the other event organizer pretending she wanted more details on the event, and then just bombarded her with drama about the banned person. She was constantly stopping us and getting in our way while we were running around trying to get things done. Unfortunately, we dealt with a small group of people who only showed up to sabotage the event. They kept to themselves and didn't join most of the functions and broke as many rules as possible. It was really sad to see, after spending a year trying to make the event happen.

After the fact we did contact the head editor for the Daily Mail with complaints about the reporters conduct. I also consulted a lawyer about the libel in the article but was advised not to pursue it because DM has a LOT of money and was based in UK making it extremely hard for American/Canadian law to help. Basically, they have the money to tie it all up while we waste all ours. Contrary to popular opinion, even with loads of proof, slander/libel cases rarely make it to court compared to other cases, and are rarely won.

You can thank the person who brought this woman in, with all their malicious intent, for the terrible representation of the mer-community. They got so many complaints they turned off commenting on their article within a day, changed a bunch of details within a day, changed the tag line within a day... it sure was interesting.

The daily mail is known to be such an unreliable source of information, that it is not recognized as a verifiable source or citation anywhere.

I believe we CAN be supportive of each other, we CAN shed light on false narratives, and we CAN bring some light and humor and imagination into the world. there will always be "villains" and people with deep issues, but if we are truthful and kind and generous of spirit, we can prevail.