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Dear everyone: If you haven't already, please take 20 minutes and have your mind blown by Cienna Madrid's feature about people who lie about having terrible illnesses to people on the internet. Then read the comments. A sample:

This was extremely interesting, thank you. It also explains why my sister was turned away from an online support group she tried to join when she was diagnosed with a disease not normally seen in people until they 50 years older than her. She told me they said they didn't believe her, and I was so sad for her. I thought that they were so horrible, I guess they were just protecting themselves from something that really does happen. Posted by ScienceNerd on November 21, 2012 at 1:01 PM.

There's another great thread discussing Cienna's feature over at Metafilter, including this impressive bit:

I saw Ferris Bueller's Day Off recently, and I found the character completely unpleasant. The fact that Bueller is faking a serious illness for sympathy, and that the town is running fundraising activities for him as a result, made me feel quite disgusted. I kept expecting that this would come out, and he'd be shamed, but this doesn't happen during the movie. I can't understand why that movie is so popular - don't people see what an awful person he is, and once it comes out that he was never sick, why the town will never again come together to help a person who really is sick? Posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:03 AM on November 24 [9 favorites]

Read the instigating feature here.