Bear411 Silliness

[bjarvis]

I was in Crate & Barrel yesterday afternoon when co-trailer trash jearbear65oh calls my cell phone.

"Are you near a computer?" he asked.

"Um, nope. But there's some lovely pie plates to my left if you're interested."

"Maybe another time. When you get a chance, go to Bear411 and look up the profile of bear511."

"Why are you on Bear411 at 2:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday? Go outside and get some exercise. Come back to it at 2 AM like everyone else."

"Never mind why I'm on right now. Just go look as soon as you can." *click*

When Jeff and I returned to his place, we looked up the profile in question:
"Bear511 - San francisco | CALIFORNIA | USA
Hi! My Name is Mark. I am a Bottom.
I Can Speak: -English-"

Fine & unexceptional, except the photo is that of my dear husband, kent4str circa 1996. He's a little greyer now than he was then --10 years with me will do that to a person-- but that's him.

I'm so tempted to mess with Mark... "Great photo! Got any more? No? That's a shame, but hey look, I have photos of at our campsite! At our thanksgiving party! At our wedding!"

kent4str is still trying to decide if he's amused, angry or just annoyed. I'm choosing the amused option, but then again, it's not my photo. I wonder if anyone has ever used one of mine. And I wonder what this Mark actually looks like.

Comments

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

joebearsandiego gets impersonated all the time. I'd take it as a form of flattery. :) it's funny when "Mark" 's profile showed up yesterday in the "new" profiles - I recognized the photo. but - - now I know why. (giggle)

Bear411 is a truly strange little microcyberenvironment. :)

[annoyinghandle.livejournal.com]

Damn you -- ya beat me to it!

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

well - I'm on PC afterall.

[annoyinghandle.livejournal.com]

Email joebehrsandiego (tell 'em I sent ya), if ya wanna talk bear identity theft -- he had a straight guy do this to him!

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

I've seen that on several sites, like gay.com for example and it would not surprise me that it's happening on bear 411 too.

It can be a sincere form of flattery, but it's also fraudulant and not being honest/truthful about who the person is when you go to the great lengths to find a pic of someone else to use as your main profile pic.

Then there are guys who insist they aren't bitter or angry but their posts indicate otherwise, like the profile I found on 411 yesterday while chatting with a fella from Portland.

Of course I had to post about it too. :-)

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

Oooh, handsome guy. Maybe I'll chat him up! [not fully reading post]

[excessor.livejournal.com]

I think I would be annoyed. The guy is getting chatted up (understandably so) by people who should, by all rights, be chatting up kent4str.

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

That was my first thought!

(Hey, I've known Kent since *before* the electric blue hair highlights incident...)

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

I've known Kent since *before* the electric blue hair highlights incident.

whatwhatwhat?? this sounds like A Story. Dish! do tell!

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

Back in college, before Kent was salt-and-pepper grey all over his head, he had dark hair with this funky patch of pale grey right in the middle of his forehead.

Of course, his hair was longer then -- this was the early '80's after all. And it was pretty curly naturally.

So he went to get a haircut, and somehow his hairdresser talked him into dying just the grey patch electric blue. And when I say electric blue I mean PAINFUL TO LOOK AT ELECTRIC BLUE. She also assured him that it would fade in about 2-3 weeks at the most.

That damn patch of hair took almost the whole semester to fade to baby blue. The only reason the blue went away is because he eventually got enough haircuts to cut it all off.

And then there was the time he dyed all the hair on his head deep purple. At home. Kinda matched a zippered, hooded sweatshirt I was fond of wearing at the time. He told me when he did the blue thing that I wasn't one to talk, since *I* wore such a loud purple sweatshirt. Didn't stop me much, though :)

[kent4str.livejournal.com]

Hey! Do I give away all your nasty little secrets from way back when?

Oh, I guess I do. Never mind.

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

ahem. yes.

Unless I give them away first!

hair colour - because we're WORTH it

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

I'm certainly not going to laugh at Kent (or was it Skippy?) with blue hair (although my image of "blue hair" is usually one of ladies Of A Certain Age, who frequently have mink coats too). After all, in the Trawna Pride celebrations of 1990, I got talked into spraying my hair pink. (the picture is of me, wrapped in a plastic sheet to keep the colour off the shirt, the hand visible is the perpetrator artiste who applied the pigment.

Unlike Kent, mine came off 'meejutly. Washing my hair that evening was like the shower scene in Psycho without the knife.

(oh my. I had a full head of hair. and my beard was all dark brown. ou sont les cheveux d'antan?)

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

An just *how* much mileage have you gotten from the "zombie in the squirrel costume" story???

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

"Zombie in the squirrel costume"? I thought he was aiming for the baseball/Godspell story.

Dirt! More dirt!

[kent4str.livejournal.com]

Oh, lots. Lots and lots...

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

And lots and lots...

I once had to drink an entire bottle of champagne with John Ford because of you ;)

[kent4str.livejournal.com]

Oh, you've done worse because of me - and with me. And despite me.

[cuyahogarvr.livejournal.com]

Okay, don't tease us and start these topics without DETAILS. Geez, so unfair!

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

Tough :)

[beldamon.livejournal.com]

I've actually had a picture of mine highjacked that way... I was obscurely flattered, not particularly annoyed...just mystified... wondering what this guy would do, should he get dates from that profile. Say it was an 'old' pic?

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Yup. My dearest snugglebunny did three movies for Manhunter Video shortly after we met in the mid 1990s. The photo Bear511 was employing was a promo still from one of them. Our memories are a little faulty but Kent's pretty confident it was from the last movie, some time around 1997-8 or so.

[allanh.livejournal.com]

I'd be more than annoyed, and would report the profile to Bear411, and get his fraudulent ass bounced off the system.

This is still identity theft, even if it "only" involves pictures rather than legal information.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

I'm so tempted to mess with Mark... "Great photo! Got any more? No? That's a shame, but hey look, I have photos of at our campsite! At our thanksgiving party! At our wedding!"

I say, go for it. maybe adding "if you're going to impersonate my husband, the least you can do is take out the garbage and do the laundry at our house".

DO keep a copy of the offending page.

maybe even send a copy of your letter to mark to the site officials at bear411.

and ask him to send you a real photo, too.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

on further thought, how about taking out a profile on bear411. call yourself - oh, I dunno, "bear512". use the same photo of Kent, and add a photo that has the two of you in it.

then in the blurb, say does he look familiar? I'm not "bear511" living in san francisco, neither is my name "mark". we live in silver spring, and have sometimes been the object of photo identity theft. But we're a fun couple and... [whatever else you want to say, possibly commenting on bottom-tude, but that may be oversharing in this instance]

leave the quotation marks in.

alternatively, you could ask the "mark" who shares your bed to take you to san francisco - I mean, if he lives there, the least he can do is show you around.

[urbear]

That sounds like fun, but experience has taught me that folks who commit picture theft won't rgive you much satisfaction... he'll almost certainly just delete the profile and vanish. Not much entertainment value there!

I've been doing the online thing for a very long time (> 20 years) and no one has ever impersonated me to my knowledge. Should I be insulted?

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

Um, last I checked, Kent was a top. Or at least a switch.

Explain THAT, Markeypoo!

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, my information could be out-of-date.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think we should be glad that "Mark" has tipped his hand.

And of course "Mark" is a pseudonym. He's actually Skippy, Kent's evil twin. What's good about this is we now know that ETS is living in San Francisco, and if any hanky-panky starts up, that's where to begin the search.

as to "top" -- um, Real Tops don't wear powder blue ice skates.

[kent4str.livejournal.com]

1) Which is the evil one?

2) They weren't powder blue, but more of a royal.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

1)who posted this - Kent or Skippy?

2)of COURSE it was Royal Blue, queens were wearing them. But the photo looks light blue, not dark/royal blue. unless you count the what look like velcro closures. NOT a butch top colour.

3)is this turning into a velcro bondage story for queens?

4)time to go to work now.

[bearfuz.livejournal.com]

I confess... I wrote a 411 message to "Mark" and called him on his deception. So if he disappears prematurely you can blame it on me. (I also used the word "loser.")

[tdjohnsn.livejournal.com]

Actually, i was thinking of going the "OMG, I have all your videos! when can we get together?!? Will you sign my DVD of your movie?!?" direction myself... :-)

[bearfaced.livejournal.com]

"Mark" obviously does not realise that everyone knows everyone else these days... My profile is Bearfaced on 411 and on most things but someone imaginitively called himself "Bearfaced1" ... Luckily for him he didn't use my picture or he'd have no responses! I do get his email sometimes for some reason.

the first image this morning

[redbearmark.livejournal.com]

The offending bear511 was the first profile this morning on bear411.

I just had to comment about this being a photo of my friend on the east coast. How possibly could it be you on the west coast.

Maybe you could make him be your slave and do windows and corners!

A good week ahead to you both - it is gonna be hot, so keep cool!

[kent4str.livejournal.com]

And the really fun thing is that picture is copyrighted, so he's really breaking a law, not just being extremely stupid.

I'm going to see about contacting him tonight, if he's still on Bear411. I'm still torn between being pissed off that he's putting out false information about me, flattered, amused, and curious about what he really looks like.

I'll let everyone know if anything happens.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

do keep us posted, but remember what he's really doing is putting out false information about himself, less so about you.

ask him if he wants to be your stunt double in your next film...

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

tea, meet keyboard!

oh my. I needed that!

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

tea, meet keyboard!

eye thengyew

== == ==

I was very sad to see this lunchtime, when I was going to point this thread out to a friend in Victoria BC, that the Bear511 profile is no longer online. Rats. and we were having SUCH fun with it.

That Skippy just has NO sense of humour.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Apparently this happens fairly often. Or else I just have uncommonly handsome friends who are more likely than the general bear population to experience identity theft. Anyway, the profile has vanished.

[stormecho.livejournal.com]

A few years ago we attended a dance in Gaithersburg and you guys came by to check it out. Lynette and Takeuchi were calling. Our friends Robert and Chuck were dancing and we introduced you. Some days later Robert sends me that picture of Kent that he received via a yahoo group that he subscribes to. "Is this your friend?", he says. Yup. I just figured your floating your pics around for others to enjoy. Who knew it was stolen goods?