"virtual factitious disorder", pseuicide", and "bimbot"

[Joel S. Berson]

All are words used in a review of "VIRTUAL UNREALITY: Just Because 
the Internet Told You, How Do You Know It's True?",  by Charles Seife 
(Viking).  $26.95.  I suspect these words are also present in the 
book itself, but I have not bought it yet.

"virtual factitious disorder" -- a severe disease, publicized on the 
world wide web, possessed by a person who does not exist.  Also known 
as "Munchausen by Internet".

"pseuicide" -- suicide of a non-existent person suffering from an 
incurable virtual factitious disorder.

"bimbot" -- a fake woman created online to entice men.

 From the NYTimes review, now at http://tinyurl.com/q67odoe :

"Then there are sock puppeteers who fabricate phony personas to 
acquire authority or sympathy. It has become so common for bloggers 
to fabricate young people with terrible diseases, the author notes, 
that this syndrome now has a name: "virtual factitious disorder" or 
"Munchausen by Internet."

"Mr. Seife sums up how these stories tend to go: "Create a sock 
puppet or two, give it a tragic problem that will garner sympathy, 
and then commit 'pseuicide.' It's almost guaranteed to cause a big stir."

"Mr. Seife also dilates here upon scam artists, photo manipulators, 
flash trading on the stock market, the promulgation of "bimbots" 
(fake online women created to lure lonely men) and the primordial 
idiocy of sites like Foursquare, which encourage you to tell people 
where you are in order to earn meaningless badges."

Joel

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