A LGBT XYZ Indigenous Professor Who Died of COVID-19 Didn’t Actually Exist

[Origanalist]

Academic Twitter users made friends with the nonexistent professor, mourned her death, and then discovered they had been catfished.
KT

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A popular Twitter account claiming to be run by a *****, Indigenous Arizona State University professor who “died from COVID-19” on Friday was an elaborate catfishing hoax. Though the account, called @sciencing_bi, had gained some renown in Science Twitter circles, the professor does not seem to have ever existed at all.

For months, @sciencing_bi had tweeted about their apparent battle with COVID-19, and being forced to teach in-person at Arizona State University in April. Early last week, @sciencing_bi tweeted about needing help fighting COVID misinformation on a COVID survivor Facebook group. The account tweeted extensively about social justice, the professor’s Indigenous heritage as a member of the Hopi tribe, the LGBTQ experience in academia, and their battle with COVID-19.

On Friday, BethAnn McLaughlin, founder of MeTooSTEM, announced that @sciencing_bi had “died from COVID-19,” and tweeted a long thread about the impact @sciencing_bi had on her.

“Who else is going to tell me that I’m not being strong enough? That the bigger fights are ahead That I have to do better,” McLaughlin tweeted. “Who else is just going to be there to call me out publicly for being soft on NIH and NSF? She wasn’t nice. She was powerful and she worked so stinking hard.”

But ASU told Motherboard in a statement that it has had no faculty member die of COVID-19 in recent days, Twitter has suspended McLaughlin’s and @sciencing_bi’s account, and the Hopi tribe told Motherboard it is unaware of any professor who matches @sciencing_bi’s description who has died of COVID-19. That @sciencing_bi was a catfishing hoax was worked out by several members of the academic community over the weekend.

“Unfortunately, this appears to be a hoax. We have been looking into this since this weekend and cannot verify any connection with the university,” an ASU spokesperson told Motherboard in an email.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y...st-asu-twitter

[dannno]

I thought catfishing is more of a thing people do when they want to date somebody online but present a better version of themselves to date a higher quality person, either by altering their own photos or using someone else's.

This sounds more like a LARP or a troll.

[Anti Globalist]

I didn't think that a LGBT XYZ indigenous person even existed.

[Occam's Banana]

I didn't think that a LBGT XYZ indigenous person even existed.

Racist!

[dannno]

I didn't think that a LGBT XYZ indigenous person even existed.

..

Two-spirit

Two-Spirit is a modern, pan-Indian, umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender ceremonial and social role in their cultures.