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Notes -
I just read about a real life version of the "isn't there someone you forgot to ask?" meme. Woman finds out a guy in his 30s dated a girl 13 years younger. She writes a story with their details, except in her story the guy is a creep. And now they're making a movie based on the story.
This is the short story: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person
This is the movie trailer: https://youtube.com/watch?v=J2VukOLSxoY
And this is an essay where the girl in the relationship says the guy was great: https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/07/cat-person-kristen-roupenian-viral-story-about-me.html
Alexis, a senior in high school, briefly worked with Charles at a restaurant. She was a hostess and he was a waiter. They liked each other and texted a lot. They slowly started dating. He was the liberal type who wouldn't own a car because it was bad for the environment. He even asked for consent before he kissed her for the first time. She said he was very gentle and caring and they had lots of things in common.
The only downside of the relationship was the fact that she felt people judged her for it, and that she felt she was growing up too fast by being in love with someone so old. They eventually grew apart and broke up when she was a sophomore in college, after dating for 2 years.
A few years later, Kristen Roupenian has an "encounter" with this Charles, after which she finds out that he dated someone much younger than him. She decides to write a story that includes personal details about him and the girl, including their small hometowns, places they worked at, the place they had their first date at, the way the guy dressed and a description of his house. Except in her story the guy is a creep, bad at sex, a liar and manipulator, who becomes abusive when the girl breaks up with him.
The story goes viral during the metoo movement. Alexis and Charles find out and are weirded out. Alexis thinks the author couldn't have known so many details about her life without stalking her online. Charles said he started questioning whether he was really an asshole and would go through old texts to make sure that was not the case.
A few years later, Alexis finds out Charles died. No cause of death is mentioned, other than the fact that it was unexpected. Earlier in the essay she says he was on antidepressants, so suicide is a possibility in my opinion.
Alexis tries to contact Kristen and she responds via email with a half-assed apology in which she says she shouldn't have included some of the details. Alexis writes this essay to tell her side of the story, but it doesn't change much.
And now they are making a movie based on this story.
Also, these are the pictures of the women mentioned in this post. I will let you figure out who's who.
https://imgur.com/2gApE3K
https://imgur.com/l2cfZtd
From a letter from the author to the woman whose life the story was based upon:
Basically, she used her fear of violence from men to justify pretending the story was entirely fictional. Looks like the character of 'Robert' was treated unfairly compared to his real life counterpart, but to be honest about that might have opened the author up to danger from the author's perspective (ostensibly anyway).
Edit: Author also asked for a phone conversation to be considered off the record after she was told the guy 'had died'. I can see how the unfairly maligned man suiciding as a movie demonising
himthe fictional version of him goes into production not be great for ticket sales.This goes to show how victimhood in progressive thought is anti-fragile. You can write a story about some guy in the New Yorker to critical acclaim that smears his name with lies, get it made into a movie, the guy kills himself, and when you get a negative response you are still the (even bigger) victim! People wonder why wokeness is so popular and THIS IS WHY! How can you even defeat that?
To be fair the guy killed himself years after the story was published in 2017, and the counter article by the young girl who dated him was written in 2021. The guy probably offed himself in 2020 or so and the movie is coming out in 2023 so likely didn't go into production until after his death.
The rest of your point about crybullying as a defense against criticism stands though.
Is it confirmed that he killed himself? The OP seemed very uncertain
No its not confirmed. It seems likely based on the deliberate lack of description of how he died as this is common in media reporting.
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True, but if she starts getting push back about the guy killing himself as this movie draws more attention to it, she will still make it about her and how it affects her. The push back will be "harassment" and "trolling" and "violence" and she will feel even more strongly she is a victim. This people are so predictable. She will never apologize or think she did anything wrong.
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