On the heels of my last post, where I love on my bloggy family, comes the news about Nic and the TSA. When I first read her story, I felt righteous indignation on her behalf; I thought her writing was a bit overwrought, but very few of us (and certainly not me) are beyond using dramatic language to convey a sense of the emotion we felt in a given situation. I sort of shook my head and dismissed her tweets about selling her story, since it seemed to me like adrenaline-driven ranting. And to be honest, I’m fine with that, because on Twitter I find that there’s a lot of sarcasm, in jokes, exaggeration, and revealing comments that people would probably not say face-to-face. These are the tweets I kind of shrug off and ignore, in general.
When I woke up the next morning to a tweet from TSABlogTeam pointing me towards their blog post in response to Nic (I assume they messaged me because I RT’d Nic’s post because “everyone else is doing it” — yes, I gave in to peer pressure), I had to go check it out. I didn’t watch the entire video. I didn’t need to. I just read the words, the comments left by visitors, and the tweets just beginning to buzz among my friends: Nic’s story didn’t ring true.
I watched the ranting on Twitter: “Nic’s in hiding! Why isn’t she responding to the TSA?” Nic had posted that she was going on a cross-country flight, and I tried to calm one person by telling her this, but to no avail. The witch hunt had begun. The judgments were being handed out, and there was no way to stop them.
This is when I started to feel angry at Nic. I believed her. I have been talking with her off-and-on since July; I’d call her a casual friend of mine. Certainly, she owes me nothing, but I have seen her be so supportive, kind, and friendly to people, to me, that I never expected deception from her. I could have accepted if she added some melodrama and exaggeration to her tale for the sake of a “better” story.
Then she posted her apology, and I got angrier. All I got out of it was that she accused the TSA of doctoring the video footage.
REALLY, Nic? REALLY? Please. Give your readers, and yourself, more credit than that. If you lied, own up to it. Yeah, you fucked up — on a pretty grand scale, at that — but you know what? A lot of us were rooting for you. As messed up as it might sound in retrospect, we wanted you to have been wronged. We wanted your story to be true, so much so that we never questioned it. So much so that when the TSA came out with their side, we felt personally wronged, and betrayed. We felt like you used our goodwill towards you as cheap currency … for what? I don’t believe you wrote that passionate post and asked us to RT it for pageviews. So what did we help you achieve? And why did you need to use us to achieve it?
Those questions are, I think, at the root of my anger towards her. I trusted Nic, and now that trust has been broken.
If Nic messaged me tomorrow asking for love and support, I’d offer her whatever I could. My anger doesn’t preclude me from worrying about her and her family, nor does it allow me to shrug off the insults and vitriol being spewed at her.
Above all else, though, I’m left with one abiding concern:
What else has Nic lied to us about?
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Your last line there has been my most frequent thought. Man, this sucks.
I didn’t know Nic or read her blog before (someone I followed RT’d and I read it) but I feel the same way that you do (I also wrote about it on my blog). As a new “mommyblogger” it really pissed me off that someone would lie about something like that and then when faced with the evidence not take responsibility (I, however, do not think she deserves all the ugly insults). Thank you for expressing (much more eloquently than I did) how a lot of us feel about this situation.
I’m at the point of not caring.
Maybe it is because I don’t really know her enough to care. But I don’t think that is it. I do have empathy for strangers in horrible situations. My heart would have ached for her if I’d read her story before the news was already spreading about it possibly being partially or completely fake.
The thing is, I don’t put it past the authorities to try to fabricate something. We’ve seen it before (most immediately the whole Vancouver airport RCMP tazer (sp?) incident). I don’t travel in the United States with my children and haven’t for years because of crap like this (I put my website link above as a link to a post where I explained why).
But I just don’t have the energy to get emotionally involved in taking sides right now. Either of them could be lying. I don’t care which one at the moment. It isn’t going to change my life one way or another right now.
EXACTLY, Tatiana.
What ELSE has she lied about?
Whoa darling. That last question pretty much nailed it right on the head. I don’t wish Nic any harm, nor any hate. I offered her so much support and love, and while she hasn’t really spoken much to me in recent weeks, I still considered her to be a friend.
I <3 you!
I read her story and RT’ed it because wow, it was a hell of a story, right? But then like you, I had the tweet from TSA pointing me to their side as well and after I viewed the footage I was tempted to write a post, but then I decided that this drama was one I was not going to chime in on over at my blog.
I don’t know Nic, but she said something about having anxiety, and panic attacks, and so I thought that obviously her perception of the whole thing was likely overblown. Maybe TSA didn’t show the whole footage. Maybe she WAS lying and just wanted traffic to her blog (the whole bubble boy incident kept coming to mind). Who really knows?
It’s a good reminder to all of us not to post when we are emotional and angry, because we might end up looking like a fool.
@Diane & Pamela & Colleen – I hope the answer is “nothing”. I really, really do.
@momsmith – I thought your post was great.
@Annie – I dunno, I just don’t understand why the TSA would go through the trouble of fabricating video. She’s not accusing them of something hugely outlandish; yes, what she says they did violates their rules, but it’s nothing that seems worth creating video for, to me. That post you wrote, however? Scary stuff.
Uh, yeah. That last question is mine, too.
It’s why I hate situations like this. And the one thing that keeps me wary when I deal with my friends on the internet (or in the box, as my son says). I wish I could feel completely open and free, but I just can’t.
That last line. You nailed it. That’s all I’m saying.
I don’t think the video is completely fabricated, but a little editing perhaps….?? As I said, I don’t really want to get involved to the point of discussing it in minute details. I just think the whole thing is ugh…and meh.
I took a self-imposed weekend offline and am just now seeing all of this. I don’t know Nic as well as everyone else, but I just can’t believe that it’s completely fabricated. I mean, from the tapes, her version of the story doesn’t hold water … but the anxiety and stress seemed real. Holding her in the plastic box was creepy. She seemed really emotional. I am choosing to believe (for now) that the anxiety made things seem different to her than they actually were. I am choosing not to believe that she is just a liar. Only time will tell, right?
The sad part is, even if this is the only thing she has ever “exaggerated” or outright lied about, every other story of hers will now be questioned. I don’t know what happened. I’m guessing, much like most people, that a stress-induced ‘break’ of some sort might have happened. Possibly tunnel-vision could make it seem as if her son were out of her sight. Who knows.
I bought the story. My gut told me things were off when she said he was taken out of her sight “for five minutes”. Things obviously went downhill – fast – from there.
my guess is that she never thought it would get this huge, and that the TSA wasn’t going to respond, and nobody would find out about her bs…but she definitely got called out big time, and the apology pissed me off too, that can’t even be considered an apology.
I don’t like the idea that the whole story was made up, though the video does seem to support that. But she says she called her husband, and called her mother or someone else during and after the whole ordeal. Do those people not read her blog? It seems to me she wouldn’t involve them in a story that was completely made up, which is what makes it so hard for me to believe it’s made up.
However, the footage certainly makes it apparent that it is hugely exaggerated, if not completely fabricated. I guess what makes it so hard to believe that the whole thing is a lie is that I just can’t understand the mindset required to do such a thing, to mention family members who could potentially and easily expose the whole thing to be a lie, and then, the other highly emotional and dramatic stories I’ve read on her site certainly are now tainted with doubt. I just don’t understand WHY someone would lie like that, which is what makes it so hard to believe that it WAS a lie.
I pretty much missed the entire fiasco on Twitter and I never read her blog until I heard about it yesterday. If she fabricated it then shame on her. I don’t know which story is the truth and at this point I don’t care. Her integrity will forever be in question. If she even cares.
Thanks for posting this – I’d been seeing it mentioned around Twitter but had no idea what people were talking about. I hope there’s an explanation better than how it looks right now but if there’s not, I can’t say I’m surprised. I don’t know Nic but I’ve seen way too many people lie on the internet to really put full trust in anyone, sadly.
I’ve really avoided talking about this much. I wish it wasn’t happening. I don’t want to feel hurt, betrayed or mad? Honestly, I’m starting to feel a little indifferent. It’s not like this really affects my life. Yes I feel Nic and I were becoming internet friends and yes I believed her and RT’d her story, but THIS? This won’t keep me up at nights. This really has nothing to do with me per se. THIS is just about a person that told a story that was not true and she got busted. THIS is ultimately between Nic and TSA. Nic and the people she’s closest to will need to muddle through this mess. Me? I get the luxury of turning it all off if I want.
I too have wondered about what else she may or may not have lied about. But what’s the point? I have doubt and that’s all that matters. Implicit trust in Nic from here on out has been tainted. And that? Really, really sucks.
What bothers me most about this is that social media has a powerful voice for doing good, for setting wrongs right. Even if part or most of her story is true, there are significant discrepancies that nullify the rest. It’s like the woman who called rape on the Duke lacrosse players, which turned into a racial media frenzy and then it turned out it was all a lie. Now, women who actually are raped face extra scrutiny because of it. Same with this. If someone is actually wronged and puts their voice out there, everyone will say “Is this the next TSA?” And no one will take it as seriously.
I am so sad.
This is a weird one, that’s for sure. Why would someone do that? I think I may check this out to learn what NOT to do in blogging. As if I would make up a story completely, without clarifying that it is a joke or made up…but still….
You are right on with the last line. That’s the million dollar question.
I really feel for those involved. This is a community of friends and when one chain is shaken and broken, it can really rattle ones sense of trust. Big hugs to everyone, including Nic.