Who is Ryan Schultz?

[imb]

that is such a load of crap

 

how do you "know" this apology is genuine? You don't. You've never met this person. You were fooled by them before and suddenly you think you know them?

 

I feel like the lesson here should be to not take people's online personas at their word, or believe their words are genuine, rather than double down on your faith in them.

 

Yeah what the hell. I would almost say that it's impossible for someone who did the things this person is accused of to be legitimately sorry.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

are...are you guys all real?

 

interestingly enough, David is the only real person here

[Bobson Dugnutt]

are...are you guys all real?

 

interestingly enough, David is the only real person here

 

[SouthSideRyan]

This person was hired as a writer?

cubbiebum wrote for a living, no?

 

All in favor of a second CubbieBum thread?

[SouthSideRyan]

are...are you guys all real?

 

Everyone but David.

 

ETA: Dammit TT

[javy knows my name]

that is such a load of crap

 

how do you "know" this apology is genuine? You don't. You've never met this person. You were fooled by them before and suddenly you think you know them?

 

I feel like the lesson here should be to not take people's online personas at their word, or believe their words are genuine, rather than double down on your faith in them.

 

Yeah what the hell. I would almost say that it's impossible for someone who did the things this person is accused of to be legitimately sorry.

 

Yeah this is psychopath behavior. There's no "getting better" when you're capable of such deep and harmful deception in the first place.

[ConstableRabbit]

that is such a load of crap

 

how do you "know" this apology is genuine? You don't. You've never met this person. You were fooled by them before and suddenly you think you know them?

 

I feel like the lesson here should be to not take people's online personas at their word, or believe their words are genuine, rather than double down on your faith in them.

Gullibles gonna gullible.

[Bobson Dugnutt]

i'm still reeling from the time we got catfished by PetermanRealityTour.

[imb]

julie dicaro horsefeathering sucks, wow

[Tim]

julie dicaro horsefeathering sucks, wow

I met Julie IRL at one of the Cubs conventions. She was really nice. Yeah. That's all I've got.

[Cubswin11]

julie dicaro horsefeathering sucks, wow

Yeah she’s the worst

[r_mack]

https://twitter.com/jenmacramos/status/928716801134825472

 

https://twitter.com/jenmacramos/status/928720294046457856

We all know what the response would be here if it was a dude pretending to be a girl

[David]

https://twitter.com/jenmacramos/status/928716801134825472

 

https://twitter.com/jenmacramos/status/928720294046457856

We all know what the response would be here if it was a dude pretending to be a girl

 

now keep reading

[Aaron_Kennelly]

what the what is going on in the head of a person who shares nudes with a twitter persona?

 

I try to not come across as victim blaming, but that was definitely an 'am I out of touch, no the children are wrong' moment in my head.

 

"I wouldn't have sent him those nude photos if I had known he wasn't a married, father-of-two, middle-aged man."

[jersey cubs fan]

what the what is going on in the head of a person who shares nudes with a twitter persona?

 

I try to not come across as victim blaming, but that was definitely an 'am I out of touch, no the children are wrong' moment in my head.

 

"I wouldn't have sent him those nude photos if I had known he wasn't a married, father-of-two, middle-aged man."

I mean, seriously, why is that being ignored?

[Aaron_Kennelly]

I mean, seriously, why is that being ignored?

 

I'm definitely out of touch here. It all seems very strange to me. And it really sucks that these women were emotionally abused and deceived. I don't want to victim blame. And they are certainly victims. "Ryan Schultz" is deranged person that took advantage of innocent people.

 

Everything that I've read about "his" interactions have been vague, though. So I don't even know what really was going on. I'd probably find it more sick and disgusting than... weird (?) if I knew exactly what was going on. But I just find it incredibly odd that this person created a sleazy, married, middle-aged man to start these relationships.

[ConstableRabbit]

The Deadspin article referenced some sort of guilt-trippy, emotional coersion along the lines of, “I’m depressed and will kill myself if you don’t send nudes!”

 

My reaction was... that works?

[Sammy Sofa]

The Deadspin article referenced some sort of guilt-trippy, emotional coersion along the lines of, “I’m depressed and will kill myself if you don’t send nudes!”

 

My reaction was... that works?

 

That, and, "holy horsefeathers, this person is seriously messed up." Between that and the weird separation of "Ryan" like that's an actual other person in the apology, this is some serious sociopath horsefeathers going on.

 

That said, we're reading it in a super condensed form, so it seems like it jumped from "chatting with rando sports dude online" to "sending him nudes because he's making weird threats" in no time at all. "Ryan" was grooming all of these women to be able to do stuff like this; putting in the work and the time to seem like their friend and a good guy, before seemingly consciously starting to twist the screws and slowly escalating treating them shittily before jumping to, "I'm going to hurt myself or worse unless you give me what I want." This woman is messed up, especially to be doing this so drawn out and thoughtfully as a TEENAGER.

[woodchip2153]

The Deadspin article referenced some sort of guilt-trippy, emotional coersion along the lines of, “I’m depressed and will kill myself if you don’t send nudes!”

 

My reaction was... that works?

 

That, and, "holy horsefeathers, this person is seriously messed up." Between that and the weird separation of "Ryan" like that's an actual other person in the apology, this is some serious sociopath horsefeathers going on.

 

That said, we're reading it in a super condensed form, so it seems like it jumped from "chatting with rando sports dude online" to "sending him nudes because he's making weird threats" in no time at all. "Ryan" was grooming all of these women to be able to do stuff like this; putting in the work and the time to seem like their friend and a good guy, before seemingly consciously starting to twist the screws and slowly escalating treating them horsefeathers before jumping to, "I'm going to hurt myself or worse unless you give me what I want." This woman is messed up, especially to be doing this so drawn out and thoughtfully as a TEENAGER.

 

Maybe I read it wrong, but the deadspin article was weird, because it seemed like it was making excuses for her. The article read to me, like she just got trapped in this lie, because she became friends with Alex, but that doesn't explain the behavior you mentioned.

[Sammy Sofa]

The Deadspin article referenced some sort of guilt-trippy, emotional coersion along the lines of, “I’m depressed and will kill myself if you don’t send nudes!”

 

My reaction was... that works?

 

That, and, "holy horsefeathers, this person is seriously messed up." Between that and the weird separation of "Ryan" like that's an actual other person in the apology, this is some serious sociopath horsefeathers going on.

 

That said, we're reading it in a super condensed form, so it seems like it jumped from "chatting with rando sports dude online" to "sending him nudes because he's making weird threats" in no time at all. "Ryan" was grooming all of these women to be able to do stuff like this; putting in the work and the time to seem like their friend and a good guy, before seemingly consciously starting to twist the screws and slowly escalating treating them horsefeathers before jumping to, "I'm going to hurt myself or worse unless you give me what I want." This woman is messed up, especially to be doing this so drawn out and thoughtfully as a TEENAGER.

 

Maybe I read it wrong, but the deadspin article was weird, because it seemed like it was making excuses for her. The article read to me, like she just got trapped in this lie, because she became friends with Alex, but that doesn't explain the behavior you mentioned.

 

I wouldn't expect them to be able to explain it; it's so bizarre. I mean, setting aside the gender dynamics at play, we're talking about someone doing this who was a damn child when they started it. And I didn't see it as the article making excuses for it so much as quotes from the people who got pulled into the whole mess trying to explain to everyone (and themselves). It reads like people trying to make sense of it and not really being able to, which should be expected.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

It's all so bizarre. The story on its own of Ryan manipulating these people isn't that strange. It sounds like any old catfishing story -- except that the catfisher was a teenage girl, which is also very odd, as Sofa was saying.

 

The thing that drives this over the top is the baseball writing dynamic being added in. This person actually became a baseball writer and was writing for national publications. And the catfishing was happening on the side of that.

[imb]

Waaaaaay back in the day I played this online game and met a guy through it from some other state that loved to just chat about sports and [expletive] with me. This goes on for a long time and then suddenly he disappears. Turns out he had convinced a woman that played with us to leave her husband and move across the country to be with him. When the lady got to his house, it turned out "he" was a 40-something woman.

[jersey cubs fan]

people are sad and depressing

 

[tweet]

[/tweet]

[Sammy Sofa]

Waaaaaay back in the day I played this online game and met a guy through it from some other state that loved to just chat about sports and [expletive] with me. This goes on for a long time and then suddenly he disappears. Turns out he had convinced a woman that played with us to leave her husband and move across the country to be with him. When the lady got to his house, it turned out "he" was a 40-something woman.

 

Yeah, you hear about stuff like that happening with women being the perpetrators, but they're adults and out there looking to find some kind of relationship, no matter how many false pretenses it's built on.

 

I just can't wrap my heard around this one because of how young she was. It starts of actually making sense: "young girl loves baseball and wants to write about it, but figures nobody will take her seriously so she makes up an online identity so her writing will hopefully get noticed." horsefeathers, that's practically the script treatment for a heartwarming family comedy. But then it veers wildly off course; as they point out in the article, there was little reason to create such an in depth persona in the world of online sports journalism. All she needed was the name and a bio blurb and the work. But she went so far out of her way to try to make this a person, AND then to try and have online relationships with people based around this complicated persona, AND then escalate that to pressuring people for nude pics and making crazy threats.

 

Yiiiiiiiiiikes.

[biittner77]

that is such a load of crap

 

how do you "know" this apology is genuine? You don't. You've never met this person. You were fooled by them before and suddenly you think you know them?

 

I feel like the lesson here should be to not take people's online personas at their word, or believe their words are genuine, rather than double down on your faith in them.

 

All of the old Cubs.com people, remember that guy that faked his death by pretending to be his own brother going online to say goodbye after he had drowned in a boating accident? Then he showed up a couple months later to say it was research for a paper he was writing for a psychology class. Good times.