Category: Bully Wank


Just when we thought Jenny had turned over a new leaf.  Sigh.  Alas, she has not.  She’s on another rampage.  We feel as though we really don’t have to sum up what Jenny’s done this time.  The title of our post says it all.

We found out about this from a link to an FB article sent to us from a blog reader:

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Stunned, we went to Jenny’s blog to find out for ourselves.  We won’t link to it here, but we will show you the shots we took.

It starts with:

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And ends with:

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We would say we’re shocked, but everything coming from the bullies these days seems to get worse and worse. When the author on FB brought it to people’s attention, do you think Jenny was ashamed of her behavior and apologized for it?

Uh… no.

She sent this to the FB author:

JennyAdmits

Way to go, Jenny!  You’ve shown your true colors once again!

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An Addendum

The author (who we know is definitely NOT racist or a rapist) who originally called Jenny out for her bullying was recently attacked on Twitter by her and her fans/friends.  We wanted to show you what these bullies do when you stand up against them (we’ve whited out the author’s identifying information to protect him):

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Before we begin with our post today, we want to share with you a new development on GR.  Apparently, GR wants to know how customers rate them:

RateGROne of our visitors already filled out the form and had this to say:

I received a GR “survey” today and was happy to tell them my low opinion of their pathetic, anti-writer site.  They’ve done nothing less than create a stalking and trolling playground for sociopaths.  It’s beyond me what the point of all this mass hatred of writers is.  I don’t know if it is fueled by other authors, or just the usual conspiracy of dunces.

Anyway, it’s good to know you guys are here.  I think the best way to influence Goodreads is to stop using their site completely.  Those of us who do well with Amazon may want to see if we can influence things on that side of the great divide.  Beyond that, I think GR is a lost cause.

If any of our readers want to join in and let GR know what you think, just click on this link.  We’ve also posted a link to the survey on our sidebar.

Now, on to business…

In our last post, GR Silences Authors, Part 1, we showed you the story of an author who spoke out against the abuse on GR and was banned for it.  Now we want to show you the whiny feedback discussion started by , one of the bullies on our BBG list.

As you read, please take note of a couple points.  One, everything these bullies accuse authors of doing (i.e. stalking and harassing, getting their friends to stalk and harass, etc.) is absolutely false.  We never see authors doing this.  But!  We’ve seen on countless occasions the bullies doing it not just to authors, but to anyone who stands against them.  Two, these dumb asses still seem to think the reaction to them is about negative reviews.  It’s not.  It’s about their vicious and ceaseless personal attacks against others.  This is a point they never seem to get.  Finally, we have honestly lost track of how many times we’ve caught the bullies in their pious hypocrisy, not to mention their incessant lying.  In the from the GR feedback forum, you will see this come out glaringly in their words:

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Then Kara responds with this:

Kara

We’d like to draw your attention to where she says:

Blog posts on Goodreads that seek to harass or intimidate individual reviewers do violate our Terms of Service and the appropriate action will be taken.

Gosh, that’s funny, Kara, because that’s exactly what Angela did in  and yet strangely enough, nothing happened to her post or her account.

Oh, but wait!  That’s right!  I forgot.  She’s one of you, isn’t she?  So she can harass anyone she wants and get away with it.  Silly me.  I should have known.

Anyhow, back to the whiners:

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Now at this point, we would tell you why all of this whiny bullshit is so hypocritical, but we don’t have to because Annabeth took the words right out of our mouths:

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Well said, Annabeth!

And then the whining continues.  Notice how Jim says something very insightful here.  Apparently, he gets it — there’s a reason these bullies end up on troll alert lists.

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Oh no!  He said our name!  What are we going to do?  We’re supposed to be the blog that shall not be named!  😀

After this ultimate faux pas by Jim, the bullies truly go crazy.  Guess he really hit a nerve:

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STGRB is vile trash?  Why?  Because we tell the truth about you?

You notice the outright lies these people tell when our site is mentioned?  That we do all of this shit that we’ve never done (also referring to Lucy’s phantom phone caller).  This is their usual MO.  They’ve been trying to discredit our site ever since we started.  By this time, their lies have gotten old.

Finally, after the discussion degenerates into an I-hate-STGRB frenzy, Emily ends the conversation because it has become “unproductive”:

Emily

And that’s it!

Whiny, whiny, whiny bullies!  They will never grow up.

But in all seriousness, we believe that this is just the beginning to a bigger issue that we see evolving on GR.  That is the growing hatred of authors and the silencing of their voices when they try to speak out against the abuse and injustice that is done to them.

Okay before we begin today, we want to share a couple things with you.  First, this one will crack you up.  It’s a new list the bullies made called  and guess who are among the ABB on this list!  That’s right.  Looney and her good pal Elly Helcl.  You remember Elly, the one who tried to pretend she was her ex-husband to get the password to our GR & Copyright post.  When I saw this list, I about spit out my coffee all over my laptop.

So, if any of you have a few authors you want to add to this list (i.e. authors they hate, muhahaha), by all means, have at it.

Now for some sad news, we just recently found this story, I Quit, on the Passive Voice about an author who quit writing.  If you ever see this happen, either to an author you read or someone you know, please give them all the support they need to keep going.  When it comes to writing, the golden rule always applies: Never give up!

*sigh*  Sadly, we have four new bully stories.  The first one comes from an anonymous author who was targeted for being a very successful self-published author.  That’s the only crime she committed – she was self-pubbed and successful.  Go figure.

SuccessfulAuthorTargeted

Another author we heard about is Sophie Monroe who was targeted by Coaxial and ETA:soon:

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We don’t know what Sophie did to incur their wrath but it probably wasn’t much knowing the nature of these two trolls.  The link to Coaxial’s (Shoshana Bick) review is  and ETA’s, .

The other targeted author this week was Martin Hopkins:

MartinHopkins

Here is the link to the , here’s , and here’s his .

(Note: we want to say thank to our eyes and ears out there who keep informing us of the victims.  It’s helpful.  This way we can let these people know that it’s not them; it’s the bullies.  It helps victims to know that they are not alone.  That there are others out there who have been targets like them.)

And last but not least, we heard from another person (an author this time) who was just recently banned from Absolute Write.  If you all remember our post on The Banning of Robin Sullivan, we warned people to stay away from Absolute Write.  Well, this person sends the same warning.  Her first message to us was this:

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When Athena asked her about her story, she sent this:

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She ended the story with her final thoughts:

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She is right.  Successful writers don’t spend their time engaging in this petty shit.  They spend their time actually writing.  And stay far away from the Absolute Write Water Cooler.  The AW mods are vipers.  They’re the worst of the worst.

So, in conclusion, let this be a lesson in our continuing bully education: beware on GR, on the Amazon Fora, and on Absolute Write.  These are common online hangouts for the bullies.  Please spread the word (quietly) to those who may not know.

Who knows, you may end up saving a life.  :)

Wow!  Now I think we’ve seen it all… okay well maybe not, but this is pretty crazy.  This just shows to what lengths these people will go.  We were just tipped off to this  where there is a screenshot of sock-puppets with our names leaving one-stars and derogatory shelving of Dougie Brimson’s book (these socks have since been deleted):

BullySockPuppets

Okay, it’s obvious this isn’t us and Dougie knows that as well, but this just proves that the real sock-puppeteers are the bullies themselves.  Ever wonder why the bullies are so quick to accuse others of sock-puppetry?  It’s the same reason why liars are the first to call other people liars.

Self-projection.

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Below is a post we published on December 14, 2012.  We’re re-pubbing it now because we want to show our readers just what we mean when we say that these bully authors, like Looney, Stacia K., Heidi B., etc., don’t actually practice what they preach, but instead always, always end up breaking their own code.  The post below shows Looney doing it again.

Also, if you check the comment thread on our Badly Behaving Goodreaders page, you’ll see that Jeremy D. (who signed the ridiculous No Sock Puppets Here, Please petition) has also fallen from grace.  No surprise there.  Just another sanctimonious hypocrite trying to join the bully crowd in order to curry favor.

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We’ve come up with a great new idea!  Every so often, when we receive screenshots of (or links to) GR bully wank from visitors, we’re going to do a blog post on them.  This is strictly for kicks.  Consider it our monthly bully wank reporting.  Today, we’ve got some good shots.  Next post we’ll be showing you some shots that one of our site visitors took when she caught the bullies in a lie.

Okay so… the first wanker of the month is none other than our favorite bully, Looney Tunes.  Here’s a shot we received from a visitor of Looney chewing out Dougie:

LooneyWank1

Such a sweetheart, isn’t she?

But wait!  There’s more!  We just recently received this comment from Anon:

If you’re interested, Somerloon is now complaining about a review for one of her own books on her blog. Wasn’t she the one who said authors shouldn’t ever address reviewers about a bad review? I think what she’s doing now could be called author behaving badly…at least in her own terms.

This exactly what Anon is talking about:

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Here is she is referring to:

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Now, you all remember Looney’s ridiculous “”, right?

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You see that?  Number four:

4. Readers have the right to say what they want about your book because they’ve paid for it (either in time reading or in actual money)

So I guess that sanctimonious hypocrisy strike five!

So, Looney, did you forget your “” AGAIN?  Or is it just that readers have a right to say whatever they want about a book only when it’s not your book.  Ah, that was it.  Just checking.

Now, moving on… here we have a screencap, sent to us by a visitor, of Jane, and Cyndy going at it. Mreeeoow!  Pfft!  Pfft!:

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Now, girls!  Can we all just get along?!

Apparently not.

Here we have infamous Ridley and her of It Had to Be You, by SEP:

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(Note: a wank review is not a bully review.  It’s important to know the difference.  A bully review is a review that attacks or libels the author.  A wank review is… well, we’ll show you.  Keep reading.)

Now, here is where Ridley and her friend, Christine, go at it:

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What’s freaky about this is that Ridley seems to be proud of the way she behaves.  And people wonder why we have her under “Scary. Run. Fast.”

Now, none of this is new to you, we’re sure, but what is new is some of the messages we’ve been getting from readers (not authors), like us, who have been harassed by this crowd for – wait for it – writing reviews about books that they like!  The bullies are actually giving other readers a hard time about writing four and five-star reviews and not enough one and two-star reviews.  As if they had a right to tell them how to review!  And, to top it all off, then they have the audacity to say that other people do not have the right to criticize them about their reviewing methods or to tell them about how to write their reviews.  Un-freaking-believable!

One of our visitors, who is one of these harassed reviewers, says:

DontHaveTime

He’s right.  That is exactly what they do.  Like Jane and her ilk, they purposefully choose books they know they’ll hate just so they can bash them.  And then they write wank reviews like these (these are reviews from Heaven, be wary, the is infested with wankers):

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So professional, aren’t they?  Now, are you starting to see why people consider GR to be the armpit of the reviewing community?  One of our visitors calls it a sewer and that’s an apt description.  It is because of the way these bullies behave and the culture they have established on GR that the information found there about books and authors is unreliable.  We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: it’s a TOXIC environment.

Below is a post we published on September 11, 2012, about a joke that was played on the bullies by some of our friendly Amazonians.  What’s so hilarious about it is that they all (the bullies) fell for it.  Every.  Single.  One.  Even Kat Kennedy stepped in and embarrassed herself… again.  We’re finding that she’s good at that.

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Okay, we had to tell our readers about this because it was just too funny!  Keep reading because this is hilarious!

Apparently, the Amazonians, Matthew Fish, G. Faso, and Splinker (who formed the ) played a joke on the bullies by making a sock puppet named  who in turn created the list .

And what did the bullies do?  They flooded it with authors who are part of their own bully group.  Who did they blame for making the list in the first place?  Gee, can you guess?  We’ll let the comments show you anyway:

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So, let’s see.  She’s been blamed for our site, for the Goodreads Follies site, for the NSPHP site, and now this.  At this point, it’s comical: “OMG!  She’s everywhere!  Watch out!  She’s just around that corner.  She’s gonna jump out at you and go BOO!”

Finally, someone named Book left this comment, informing them of who was responsible:

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In case you don’t feel like going to the Amazon forum, here are the screenshots of Mahala and G. Faso’s convo on Amazon:

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So… after Book left the comment, what happened?

Silence.  😀

Even Cuddleboogery fell for it:

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They say:

Usually, we would ignore this and be vaguely insulted that we’re supposed to be this stupid.  BUT, something rather hilarious happened.  And it happened in the form of Goodreaders flocking to the list and adding books by authors who have been targeted for sticking up for reviewers.

Peter, can we get a translation?

PP: Of course!

Of course, we couldn’t ignore this as it was an insult to our very low collective IQ, so we sent all of our minions over to the list to add books by authors who have kissed our asses and are now part of our bully group.

Thanks, Peter!

So, Cuddleboog, the only problem is that the Amazonians knew you were going to do this.  You got played.  Joke’s on you!

Trololololololo!

Well, well.  It looks as if the bully crowd is trying to tell authors how to behave… AGAIN!  A couple days ago, we received this comment from Maya:

Well, since this site is always about how readers are so mean to authors on GR, maybe this thread will interest you; readers sharing stories of great interactions they had with authors on GR: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1210998-dos-and-don-ts-for-gr-authors-blog-post. It’s the “other side”, so to speak. :)

To which Good Belle responds:

Are you fucking kidding me? Took me all of five seconds to get pissed off reading that thread. Who the hell are readers to tell authors how to/how not to behave?? And check boxes for authors before being ‘granted’ an GR account? Do we live in communist times? This ain’t Russia, China or North Korea – time for us to stop telling authors what they can and cannot do.

And Karig says:

All this does is confirm that places like Goodreads are (currently) useless for authors, particularly authors who aren’t already famous. The clique there (and at other places like the forums at Amazon) react with outrage if an author so much as mentions the name of his book (which is apparently considered “spamming”). Hell, some people there get seriously put out with you if you even mention that you **have** a book without saying what the title is.

I can understand that authors should avoid the “hard sell” and shouldn’t try to get the word out about their books by dumping blurbs and ad-speak onto a forum thread, but Heidi Belleau’s list of rules is offensive. She’s going to tell us that if you’re an author, you can’t talk to your fans unless they talk to you first, and that when that happens, you can talk about other people’s books but NOT your own? Give me a freaking break. Is an author a second-class citizen who needs to be reminded of her place? Is she supposed to shrug and accept lots of one-star reviews from people who haven’t read her books because somebody online with a chip on his shoulder thought she was getting uppity?

These rules are ridiculous, and they make places like Goodreads useless if not poison for writers just starting out and struggling to get fans in the first place.

And then Maya:

Well… you could also ask who the hell are authors to tell readers how to behave. I think everyone simply needs to behave with class and politeness, both authors and readers. I shared because an author wrote the article and I read some successful stories of reader/author interaction in there.

I must have missed the post where they wanted check boxes before allowing authors on GR.

Well, Maya, I think she was referring to on the thread.  It’s right on the front page:CheckBox

Do you see the last sentence there?  That “some people” just like causing drama?  Of course, she’s referring to authors.  But we all know, by the evidence we’ve shown over and over again on our blog, that these “some people” are none other than the bullies we have named on our BBG page.

So, here it is again!  The bullies causing drama and then blaming authors for it.  It NEVER ends.

Now, the author Maya is referring to, who wrote the blog post, is Heidi B.  We’re not going to post what she wrote here.  We’d rather not soil our pretty new theme with her self-righteous excrement, but we do agree with her on one thing – don’t ever wrestle with pigs.  This is why we always tell everyone what we wrote on our Do’s and Don’t’s for Victims: DO NOT engage with the bullies.  They are nothing more than a herd of smelly, foul-mouthed swine who relish in dragging authors down into the mud that they live in and love so well.

What we fully disagree with is Heidi’s statement that recommends authors interact with their fans only if they engage them first.  This is just utterly ridiculous.  Karig is right.  Authors are not second class citizens.  They have a right to correct factual mistakes in reviews without being bullied by these assholes.  They have a right to be offended when they are personally attacked in a “book” review, that is actually an author review.  They also have a right to be annoyed when their books are attacked by an infestation of trolls who leave one-star flybys without even reading the books in the first place.  And yet it seems that all of this is allowed on GR and the moderators are just fine with it.  This is why we alert others (particularly new authors) as to whom and what they need to avoid.  Because their GR experience can actually be rather pleasant if they know the ropes and are warned in advance.

And speaking of warnings, here are couple Anons warning our readers about Heidi and her circle of friends:

The person (author) who wrote the so-called rules is not exactly the person anyone should be taking advice from. Just my observation from reading her on Twitter and various places online over the last year or so.

And then from Anon3:

That disclaimer by the person who started that thread, stating that she doesn’t know the author is a complete lie, and the author who wrote that blog post is best buds on Twitter with some of the worst bullies out there.

Anon3 is referring to on the thread:

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Anon3 is absolutely right.  Willaful (one of the BBG) is lying.  Check this out.  Recognize anyone?

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If you didn’t recognize one of our Biggest Offenders, go here.

Or how about this shot?  Recognize any names?

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Public enemy no. 1?  Hardly.  But Heidi is rolling in the mud with the pigs.  Does it give you the impression that she wrote the post for attention?  Hmm… *scratches chin*  More than likely.  What’s hilarious is the fact that these people are constantly writing up rules for authors.  Because, you see, they always end up breaking them.  For this reason, we’ll be keeping a particularly close eye on Heidi.  If she’s anything like her friends on Twitter, she’ll end just like Looney and her “”.

Everyone remember that?  You know, the code that she broke TWICE.  If anyone is missing our posts on that, showing how she made a complete ass of herself, don’t worry.  Within the next month, we’ll be re-pubbing them, so stay tuned…

It looks like the attack on Eve Thomas continues.  As we’ve said before, the bullies never stop.  They are constantly online (either on GR or Amazon) picking fights, trying to humiliate people, and wreaking havoc wherever they tread.  Pathetic, isn’t it?

In this post, due to popular demand, we’ll be showing you the screenshots we have of the verbal diarrhea spewed by the harassing miscreants known as the Amazon Fora Trolls, whose collective IQ happens to total that of a 12-year old child.  We hope no one loses any brain cells while reading.  In the process, we’ll also be publishing the responses of the normal people on the thread.  It’s not hard to tell which is which.  The bullies’ hypocritical and unjustified pontifications are glaringly obvious.

(Please note, we do have an Amazon troll award for the most psychotic comment, but that comes at the end, so keep reading!)

First the conversation starts out rather smoothly with Gillian, Katy, and Sharon showing their support for Eve and Eve responding:

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Then, the first Amazon troll appears (big surprise):

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So Coaxial thinks she wasn’t bullying anyone or being nasty?  Maybe she forgot about the comment she left threatening Eve with nasty reviews.

But this gets better, because… *trumpets sound* we have another troll who appears on the scene and compares naming and shaming to domestic violence (we know, we know, you don’t have to tell us):

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Then Sharon and Gillian step in to correct Janet’s unfortunate lack of understanding:

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This is when Eve’s rep steps in and takes over her account on GR to let them know an investigation is under way:

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And how do they respond to this?  Well, another Amazon troll moves in, HJ Leonard in this case, who doesn’t seem to understand that it’s Eve’s rep talking and not Eve.  Remember what we said about their collective IQ equaling that of a 12-year old?  This is what we mean:

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We find it funny that HJ doesn’t believe that 87 people contacted Eve to point her to our site.  It’s just proves their denial that they have enemies.  A lot of enemies.  HJ, if you only knew how many blog readers we get a day, you’d be surprised that that number was so low.  But by all means, keep making fools of yourselves.  Keep attacking people online and making enemies.  It’s such a productive way to spend your time, ya know?

And here are some more messages and warnings from Eve’s rep:

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But they don’t seem to get the message, do they?  Because they keep coming.  Like we said, collective IQ of a 12-year old… wait, no, that would be insulting to all 12-year olds.  I take that back.  The collective IQ of a rock.  That’s better.

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As to the “Sidebar Of Shame”, Juno left this comment on our blog.  I just wanted to share it:

These bullies really are total hypocrites!!! The crap they have come out with over the last few days is laughable! If they could only see themselves the way we see them!!! It goes something like this:

BULLY – “STGRB is a terrible site, they stalk and harasses women!”

NORMAL PERSON – “Really? Where? Show me where STGRB do this? Hey Bully you are the one stalking and harassing women. Do you want to see the proof? See the screen shots above! You bully both authors and readers. You have destroyed many authors careers! YOU are the one dong these things!”

BULLY – “STRGB is mean, they hurt my feelings. BOO-HOO! They made a list of names including my name. They called this list Badly Behaving Goodreaders & Amazon Trolls. Listing peoples names is bullying! That makes STGRB bullies! My feelings are really hurt! Winge-whine!!!”

NORMAL PERSON – “Hey bully stop being such a cry baby! YOU have made a list of authors names on GR and Amazon, you have called your list Badly Behaving Authors. So in your own words that makes YOU a bully. These authors’ only crime was promoting their books, they didn’t bully or hurt anyone. Is it ok for YOU to make lists of peoples names??? But it is not ok for STGRB to make lists???”

BULLY – “A-HHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! *GROWL* You support THAT site! You are one of them! You are a woman hater! You are a child molester! I hate you! NOW!!! SEE WHAT YOU HAVE MADE ME SAY??? You have caught me out and now I must destroy you!!! I am going to email all my bully friends and get them on here to attack you!!! I’m going to log into all multiple troll accounts and I’ll attack you with ALL of them!!! I WILL MAKE YOU PAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

NORMAL PERSON – “Bully you are a whining hypocrite! I am going to ignore you from now on because I know exactly what you are up to!!! I rest my case!” :)

Okay, so, moving on.  Eve’s rep steps in again:

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Now… this is the good part, or I should say, one of the good parts.  The next two screenshots are of particular interest to us.  I almost choked when I read Zahara condemning doxxing.  Why?  Keep reading.

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Do you know why Gillian blocked Zahara?  Because we let Gillian know exactly who Zahara (aka Zahara Cerise) is.  You see, they’ve met before.  On Amazon.  Here is Zahara on Amazon revealing her identity to HJ Leonard:

ImZConGR

And guess what Anna Karenina did to Gillian?  She stalked her and dug up personal information about her.  Then she outed it to everyone on Amazon.  But that’s not all.  This gets better, or I should say, worse.  She then threatened Gillian with other, more private information that she had discovered.  We’re not at liberty to tell you what that is or show any screenshots.  If you want to know more, you can ask Gillian.  She has all the proof that Anna/Zahara did this.

Disgusting, isn’t it?

Here are a couple more comments from Eve’s rep to Anna/Zahara:

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Now, we’re getting to the finale.  To the Amazon troll award for the most psychotic comment which goes to Mahala Burlingame!  First Mahala can’t understand why her comments are being removed even after Eve’s rep distinctly told the Amazon trolls that theirs would be.

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And then Mahala leaves this:

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Not just a little freaky, is it?

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Then Mahala says she’s going to report Eve’s rep to GR:

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Then Katy says:

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Then:

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You know, I think Mahala just likes to report people.  Makes her feel special and important.

Finally, Eve’s rep blocks her and that’s the end of it.

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But… the award still goes to Mahala.  So, congratulations, Mahala!  You’ve just won our most psychotic comment award!  Good for you!  You must be so proud.

But really, in all seriousness, we hope that Eve is alright, that the investigation goes well, and that these jerks are held accountable for their actions.  If there’s anything we can do to help, we will.  And if people (and GR) can’t see by now how deranged and dangerous these trolls are, then there is no point in posting this stuff anymore.  It’s just getting ridiculous.

Below is an opinion piece written by a site visitor who asked us of he/she could share his/her thoughts about the bullies on our blog.  We want our readers to know that if they have something they want to share and wish to write an opinion piece, they are welcome to do so and submit it to Athena via Contact Us for approval.

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Is Being Evil a Handicap? (An Opinion Piece)

By Anonymous

Is being evil a handicap? This is a question that I would like to pose to readers of this excellent blog, for they are dealing with evil every day as they battle the internet trolls who strive to steal their peace, their livelihoods, and their happiness. After all, what else do you call such life-sucking vampires but pure Evil? Evil strives to hurt and to harm. Evil does not have good intentions. Evil seeks to destroy. But, admittedly (and unfortunately), evil also has a power all its own. It exists, and there are people who have always been drawn to it throughout history. There are people who grow stronger from the pain they inflict, who enjoy and thrive on it. There are people who hide behind masks of sanity who are, in reality, cold-hearted through and through. We all know such people when we encounter them, because of how they make us feel, even if they look and behave normally to the outside world. We know them because of the destruction they leave in their wake. In days gone by, these people would’ve been ostracized by their community for their behavior. Now many of them hide, undetected, behind computer screens, typing away in the flickering light, hunched in the dark, their insanity raging behind “well-written” one-star reviews and scathing attacks designed to destroy author’s careers. They make vitriolic personal posts intended to strike at the core of another human being’s heart; they attack all that is near and dear to another person; they stalk, harass, belittle, name-call, and gather like-minded bullies to destroy whomever is their next target. They do not care about the real people they harm, or the families hurt by their attacks. They don’t see the aftermath of their behavior, nor do they care. They hide behind “free speech.” They hide behind anonymous IP addresses. They hide behind fake Amazon accounts. But their intention is the same: to harm and destroy.

Intention is everything. Every sane human being has the capability to look inside oneself and ask what his / her intention is behind every choice, decision, and action. Every sane human being has the capacity to feel compassion. Every sane human being has the capability to amend the error of his / her ways after realizing he / she has made wrong choices.

Insane people cannot. Evil people WILL not.

Combine an insane person, such as one of the bullies STGRB frequently profiles who is no different from the typical frothing, eye-rolling, obscenity-screaming bag lady one sees on the street, and an evil one, such as a hate-filled, bent-on-destruction bully, and you have an entity all its own. A frightening, destructive one. The best way to deal with that type of person is to recognize what you are dealing with and head the other way when you see him / her coming your way. That is why this blog provides such a good service with the bright light it shines on such individuals: the layperson is now able to recognize the evil, often faceless bully on the internet, and utilize self-protection.

Which brings me back to the topic at hand: Is being evil a handicap in its own right?

For proud handicapped persons such as one of our other bullies (often featured on STGRB), they might say it is, and a badge of honor at that. After all, this particular bully is often seen around the web using her handicap to bully others. I’ve seen her on too many blogs boasting about her handicap, using it to garner sympathy, and then using it as a whipping stick to shut down people who disagree with her. When a disagreement gets heated (usually after this bully becomes vicious and starts attacking and name-calling), she will ultimately resort to pulling out her “handicap card” to shut people up: “I’m handicapped and you’re an ableist insulting me and you don’t know what you’re talking about, so shut the eff up” (paraphrasing here). It usually works because most people are respectful and have some degree of compassion, unlike this bully herself. In my opinion, this bully is a dual-handicap person, someone who exhibits a lack of compassion as one of her challenges. I have never once seen her apologize or take responsibility for any of her harmful actions on the internet. In fact, the more publicity she gets, the more she brags about her “strong” personality. Yeah, right. Her hateful one, is more like it. For all the people who have encountered her terrible attacks, her relentless pursuit of destruction, her rage-filled fixation on anyone she feels has wronged her, her organized lynch mobs against innocent people, and her drunk-with-power online identity, you know what I’m talking about. She is ruthless, and proud of it. And she appears to be completely devoid of conscience about her actions. That, in my opinion, is the true definition of Evil.

These bullies will likely say this blog is discriminating against them with this post. They will say this blog is ableist and hates handicapped people. This is not true. This blog post is my opinion, as a simple contributor. Simple as that. And from what I know of STGRB, this blog despises evil people and the destruction they leave in their wake. This blog champions the victims of soulless predators and evil-doers who seek to harm people’s lives, dreams, and livelihoods. This blog doesn’t hide from the truth, or from shining a light on cruel people bent on destruction, even if such people sit in a wheelchair or are psychologically unbalanced. Bully #1’s physical handicap or Bully #2’s self-professed mental instability do not, in of themselves, harm others (in fact, they could be a source of great learning and inspiration for us all, if those two people had any sense at all). But their handicap of evil DOES harm others, and that is why they have ended up on this site. Basically, from how I can see it, STGRB is an equal-opportunity bully offender, and should be proud of it. The site does not discriminate, clearly. 😉

In conclusion, I once again ask the question: Is being evil a handicap?

I would say it is. It prevents an individual from being a decent, kind person. It prevents a human being from reaching their full positive potential here on earth. I am sure being evilly handicapped denies the person from experiencing true happiness. It would be sad, terribly sad, if it weren’t so harmful to everyone around them . . . and deliberately so.

Psychopathy (or sociopathy), by most psychiatric definitions, is the only true measurement of real evil out there. It is, quite simply, defined as a lack of conscience. And that lack of conscience is demonstrated in many ways, often hidden. So how do we fully recognize it, we ask? Well, it’s pretty clear: it is the INTENT TO CAUSE HARM WITH NO CONSCIENCE ABOUT THE DESTRUCTIVE RESULT OF ONE’S OWN ACTIONS, whether it’s trying to destroy a writer’s career with fake one-star reviews, or murdering someone in cold blood. And not having a soul—or heart—is probably the biggest handicap a human being can have.

Just recently we received this comment from an Anon:

Here’s an interesting post from a successful author about why she replies to book reviews. She wrote multiple posts about this for Digital Book World. On one of them (I think the second post here), she goes into more depth for her reasons. Of course, Ridley and her cohorts jump in and start berating the author, who continues to behave respectfully. The owner of DBW finally deleted some of Ridley’s posts and reprimanded her and the other bullies about behaving respectfully (something they clearly are incapable of doing). It shows how ridiculous and insane these bullies are so clearly!

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/when-you-wish-upon-a-star-you-get-the-pointy-end-why-authors-should-always-respond-to-negative-reviews/

The article in question is titled: When You Wish Upon a Star, You Get the Pointy End (Part 1): Why Authors Should ALWAYS Respond To Negative Reviews.  In it, author Elle Lothlorien describes her philosophy on responding to reviews by readers in a business-like way.  Treating readers as customers and trying to improve their experience of an author’s product.

Below are some screenshots we took of the people who left the author comments.  Recognize any names?  BBG list anyone?  We think it is telling that Digital Book World had to reprimand them for verbally attacking the author with name-calling and personal insults.  Some of the comments were even deleted as a result and you’ll notice that the bullies then went after DBW for doing this.  This is just further proof of what we have been saying about these people for so long.

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Now, we think that what Elle is saying in her post is perfectly rational and logical.  Treat your readers as customers.  Most reader/reviewers who are not bullies, who do not intend to be abusive and who are writing an honest, critical analysis of a book will not feel intimidated by Elle’s philosophy (although it is always a good idea to make sure they are comfortable with talking to the author, just in case).  So, why does it intimidate the bullies so much?  Simple.  The bullies want to be bullies.  They want to be mean and nasty and vulgar.  They’re not interested in an author improving the book for them because they either don’t care or they don’t want to read something they’ll like.  They want to read something they’ll hate, so they can continue to be mean and nasty.  When they are presented with the author’s polite questions, they remember that they are dealing with a human being and suddenly they develop a conscience that tells them that being a bully is wrong.  Since they will never admit that they’re wrong, instead of getting angry at themselves for what they’re doing, they get angry at anyone who suggests such a horrible crime or who tries to reprimand them for their behavior (i.e. Elle and Digital Book World in this case).

Thank you, Anon, for sharing Elle’s post with us.  And everyone else, keep ‘em coming.  The more proof we can show, the more educated people will be.

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