Internet Morality Can't Be the Same as Meatspace Morality

in defense of Patriarchy Hannah, advice column #51

I’m Katherine Dee. I read in an industry newsletter that I should re-introduce myself in every post. 😓 I’m an Internet ethnographer, sometimes podcaster, and reporter. I spend maybe 20 hours a week talking to people about how they use the Internet. It’s hard work. Consider sending me $5 for my efforts:

Good evening, Dee-ists,

Sorry for sending you two newsletters in one day, but a promise is a promise and I promised everyone an advice column today.

First, some housekeeping: True to form, I'm rescheduling a Zoom call that I set up myself. The Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? event is postponed because I’ve been battling some kind of flu for the last four days and feel like shit. I’ve added a poll below to choose a new time.

Second, the advice column. I received so many questions that I’m going to have to split this post into two—maybe even three—parts.

I’ll bring this back as a regular feature on one condition: you guys engage with this one. You show me you like it, I’ll keep it going. Deal?

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With so many high-profile catfish stories being exposed on Twitter (e.g. Patriarchy Hannah, Ashley St. Clair, or Ines Helene) how can we still trust people online?

Alright, I’m not going to get into Ines Helene, but I find it interesting that you’ve grouped these cases together.

For readers who might not be aware of this drama, Ashley St. Clair is a high-profile Con Inc. influencer who, despite promoting social conservatism—including scathing judgment of single motherhood—is herself a two-time single mom (the most recent being with Elon Musk) and, according to Milo Yiannopoulos, an ex-camgirl who posted under the usernames “sexlaptop” and “optatives.”

Patriarchy Hannah, on the other hand, is a more straightforward catfishing story. The short version is that she built an online persona as a devout Christian tradwife to an ex-con named Tony and, oddly—given her claimed 10-hour-a-day online presence—also professed to be an adoptive mother of 14.

On Friday, a guy named Ryan Duff exposed that this story was completely fabricated. The real person behind the account turned out to be a 37-year-old Arkansas native named Jennifer Bays, who, having a criminal past herself, had also pilfered photos from social media and allegedly lives with her parents while doing BBW porn. Alright!

As these cases make the Discourse Cycle, we’re going to get hit with all the old clichés.

The Internet enables lying because it turns us all into text/the Online Disinhibition Effect/disembodiment/something something Bowling Alone and the degradation of in-person community, religion, morality. Be careful who you trust. Whatever. You’ve heard it all before! Tick tock until the torrent of commentary on the impossibility of tradwifery/Conservative Womanhood. So, let me try to offer something a little different.

In my view, these are two distinct situations.

St. Clair is a grifter. You can debate whether Judeo-Christian morality should apply to her or Elon Musk under some imagined “exceptional aristocrat” clause or whether “anyone” would do the same thing given the opportunity—but the more salient point is that everyone with an audience is selling you something or trying their damnest to do so.

They’re offering a persona carefully crafted to maximize clout, money, validation, or some combination of these rewards. If you feel betrayed when your favorite online personality, with hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers, isn’t true to the values they profess, then you’re naive.

After all, infotainment—a charitable description for the work St. Clair puts on offer—has never incentivized honesty. This phenomenon isn’t unique to the Internet, either. (I also wouldn’t underestimate the sheer hunger for validation required to command the kind of audience she does without offering a clear product.)

In a sentence: That’s showbiz, babe. You go to the St. Clairs of the world to be entertained or validated. You shouldn’t be going to them for moral guidance. Don’t be a mark.

As for how to trust people you personally know?

The simple answer is this: people are liars, scumbags, and occasionally dangerous, both online and off. You should exercise the same caution in trusting people online as you do in real life. Be discerning about what personal details you share, and remember that not every online acquaintance is meant to transition into a face-to-face relationship. Maintain clear boundaries between “online-only” friends and those you plan to meet in person. Watch what you say in group chats and to whom you confide, because you never know who might be talking shit about you or archiving your “receipts” to use against you later.

Such is the Internet. Such is life. People can and do keep this shit up for years.

The more nuanced answer is that these kinds of fictions aren’t always entirely bad. Even when someone isn’t presenting a literal, factual portrait of themselves, the emotional truth of their story can offer value—not only for them, but for you as the reader (or online friend). In these cases, the worth isn’t in the strict accuracy of the details, but in the benefits that roleplay provides both parties. Is it inherently wrong if someone enhances their attractiveness, adopts the persona of a married mom, or says they’re a man when they’re a woman or vice versa? Not always.

What’s striking about Hannah is how detailed her fictional life was. From my perspective, was she a grifter? I don’t know. Listening to her podcast, it felt like she constructed fully fleshed-out alternative reality—a fully immersive imaginative fiction. In my opinion, so long as no one was defrauded or given dangerous advice from a position of authority, perhaps this creative self-reinvention wasn’t such a bad thing. As for her odious political views, I mean, you didn’t need to know she was lying to make a judgment call on that.

But overall, my take is that Internet morality isn’t the same as physical world reality. It can’t be. We don’t have a body in cyberspace!

Can you comment on the unique form of jealousy one has when partners are “attracted” to the unreal, like fictional characters or chatbots?

At first, I read this the wrong way and I thought you were talking about the jealousy you experience when you yourself are enamored with a fictional character. That kind of yearning seems uniquely painful, even dream-like. Like longing for a dead person, or someone in another dimension. A life that you can imagine vividly but could never be.

The reverse seems equally painful, though: competing with an idealized, intangible entity for your partner’s affections. What makes this experience so unsettling, at least to me, isn't just that your partner wants something that doesn't exist—it's the nagging possibility that it might exist somewhere. In my mind, these fictional connections become templates for real-world replacements. Somewhere out there could be someone who more closely matches the ideal, who could step in and fulfill these fantasies. And so, you start seeing shades of the ideal in everyone, as opposed to fixating on just one person.

The fear transcends typical jealousy of “they prefer someone else,” it becomes “they prefer something I could never be.” It’s not that it’s a special jealousy, it’s a jealousy completely unfiltered. Jealousy in its purest form. It’s easy to rationalize to yourself that you’re better than a real person; but the white space of fiction can drown the most secure people.

Do you think about the tension between Posting Recklessly vs. Being Scarce/Mysterious so that when you do Post people listen? So that the algorithm rewards you, and people’s brains reward you, and they look forward to your next post, like a boyfriend who never calls?

It depends on who you are. I don't think it's a one-size fits all situation.

Some people benefit from breadcrumbing their audience. Their scarcity creates value but usually they already had an “it” factor. For others, constancy is the only way to maintain their place in the ecosystem. You can't manufacture mystique if you don't naturally have it. Some people just aren't cool!

When you can't trade in allure, you trade in reliability. In other words, if you're not cool, try being consistent.

Acquaintance is faking plurality (multiple personalities) for attention. Super loudly and noticeably in shared social settings, both online and IRL. The core identity has been almost completely subsumed by an alter by now. I used to like this person a lot but she’s putting on a show all the time now and I don’t even recognize her anymore. I think it’s a legit experience for some people but I know this person well enough to be 99% sure that this isn’t a genuine dissociative disorder in her case. The problem is that everyone else is just nodding along. They’re using her dozen different names, playing into elaborate role playing scenarios at casual hangouts, and acting like this is totally normal behavior for a 26 year old.

Several alters are anthropomorphic animals or cartoon characters. For one of them, she puts on this really bad Scottish accent and no one acknowledges it. I really wish I was joking. I feel like I’m taking CRAZY PILLS. Worried I’ll be asked directly about it and then I’ll get viciously smeared in our shared social circles. She’s done it before. Considering detaching from these people completely but it’s hard because of the shared workplace and overlapping friend groups.

These are grown adults in their 20s…