The Facebook Author Who "Disappeared" For Two Years
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- čas přidán 23. 01. 2023
- Today let's discuss the bizarre details of a recent drama in the book world- author Susan Meachen, thought to have passed away nearly three years ago, has suddenly re-emerged, alive and well. A strange story of lies, drama, impersonation, and even allegations of fraud- let's discuss, and hopefully debunk some of the misinformation surrounding the situation. It's a wild one.
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Izzzy describing the books as „pretty standard cliché romances“ after just telling us about how unique the author thought her concept was was great
they're right too, made me laugh :)
I literally can’t contain my laughter when an author thinks their ideas are unique when their ideas are just cliches. I myself am a writer and I enjoy making my stories interesting/realistic but the only thing unique would be my characters bc they’re from my own brain. Basic tropes are fun to write. And it’s okay to write basic tropes as long as you aren’t claiming them as your own idea 🥲🥲🥲
Yeah. Not trying to knock the author but they're really reinventing the wheel there when every book cover alone looks like something I've seen on 2015 era Wattpad
@@superoriginalusername. sorry to derail the comment section but I love ur pfp 💔
My old school friend writes, and I just can't bring myself to read her stuff because I'm almost certain it's the same stuff (not my cup of tea, and not groundbreaking). She has mild success, so I will remain happy for her 🥲
Dated a girl who had a bunch of these romance Ebooks on Amazon as well as a couple in print from a major publisher and her writing advice was you can get away with literally anything as long as it's in romance novel form. I worked in a used book store at the time and I'd show her the craziest things and she'd be like "yeah, there's a whole subgenre where women fall in love with Santa Claus."
I would not be surprised if some authors of those are basically just seeing how strange they can get away with making their concepts and still sell well.
@@Darca1n That is what Chuck Tingle does. His book titles are something else!
reminds me of the bigfoot erotica that became weirdly important in a congressional race a few years back. god bless human beings, they're such weird and fascinating little fellas
Damn didn’t know gettin scandalous with Santa was a turn on 😂
@@momsspaghetti7077 have you never listened to santa baby before?
"Its disgusting that online hate drove someone to kill themselves! We should retaliate by directing online hate towards people!" is classic facebook drama
Ending bullying by bullying
@@CaretakerWanted i used the bullying to destroy the bullying
people use laugh reacts if someone likes the snow white doll with a different skin tone that has come out.
The weirdest part is that these are probably mostly boomer moms.
*classic internet drama
Making a bully romance anthology in the honour of a person who died because of bullying is…. a choice
when u pretend-die and get commemorated by the proshippers
A choice I could see coming ngl, I'm not sure who tainted my view of romance authors but my first thought was "yeah, that tracks".
@@ClowncoreisCool LMAO Yeah
That's facebook-level decison making
it's the most choice ever
The "buy my mom's books or I'll unlist them" part still baffles me. Whether it was her or her daughter, it was low to try to profit from the grief of those in the group.
ETA: I'll eat a whole bag of Haribo's sugar free gummy bears if Izzy ever posts a tutorial of her makeup looks.
the commitment is admirable but please don’t put your stomach through that. 💀
The daughter's fixation with getting sales of her mum's books was... interesting. Like I'm not judging anyone for how they grieve but if a family member of mine passed away, guilt tripping their fans into buying their books would not be my main priority.
reminds me of that old story where the dude was sent the wrong Haribo bears and ate a ton of the laxative ones
You were already going to do that, though...
Yeah, so bizarre. "My mom died, and she loved these books! I'm going to get rid of them if you don't buy them!"
I think it was crummy of her to continue the hoax. Her friends and fans thought she offed herself. Just declare indefinite sabbatical or disappear *without* claiming to be dead. Can't blame her for wanting to get away if it was that mentally taxing, but suicide is a serious topic: don't fake it.
Not to mention the guilt and finger-pointing and bullying accusations that people who knew her went through because of it. I empathize with her mental health issues but that doesn't excuse her from the fact that she affected a lot of other people's mental health for the worse, too.
I feel like the number one rule of faking your own death is you don't get to show up a couple years later and act like it's no big deal. Assume a new identity at least, then some internet sleuth can figure it out and you can spin it into an ARG and a whole new series of books
@@bookshelfhoney LOL at the "number one rule."
"I'm offended by the misbehavior, sure, but I'm even more offended by the sloppiness. Didn't you even *glance* at the evildoer's handbook?"
@@bookshelfhoneyagreed. If you are going to do something bad, at least do it right.
@@dubblebubbletoilandtrouble6646 I now want a story about a villain lecturing her villain bestie on why she villained the wrong way 😂
It is absurd that people are claiming criticizing this author's actions is ableism. Being mentally ill (bipolar disorder in this case) is a reason for an action but it is not an excuse, especially when it is being used to deflect the pain you've caused others.
Source: I have borderline personality disorder.
Bipolar here.
For me, my actions when I'm in a depressive mood cycle are genuinely awful. I am a straight-up bad person when I am in that state. I always owned my mistakes, even though I wasn't choosing to make them. Taking accountability meant preventing myself from harming others by seeking help; in my case, pharmaceutical therapy. I have missed my dose of mood stabilisers under 5 times in 7 years because doing otherwise would be irresponsible.
Taking some drastic action, then repeatedly making it worse over the course of years? That's not bipolar. That's planned.
@theMoporter hi five for accountability friendo! 🤚🏻 i wish you well in your future mental health journeys
Remember kids, mental illness explains actions, but doesn't excuse it. We understand that having mental illness can cause you to do things you wouldn't normally do, but you still need to be accountable.
Don't fake your death. Don't guilt trip people into buying books.
true, a manic episode could probably trigger outlandish and risky behavior like running a scam and feeling justified in it at the time.
but a scam is also not THE inherent choice a manic person might make. there are many different outlandish and risky behaviors mania can manifest as and i think it depends on the person.
like if you already have patterns of mild deception to self comfort when stable, that could escalate towards a big scam during a manic episode. if a person tends to seek comfort in the arms of a lover when stable, then that person might be inclined to start into a wild and unsafe sex life during a manic episode.
i'm not bipolar but i've experienced mania from medication and my mania is sort of an exaggeration of my underlying normal persona. medication induced mania could be difficult from bipolar mania tho so take this with the appropriate amount of salt !
Yeah, I have BPD but I refuse to use it to try and excuse my actions. I just want people to know that that's why I'll sometimes act the way I do, but I don't want it to dictate my life.
I think the part where she explicitly blamed the community for her fake suicide says everything you need to know about the people behind this.
Why is that so controversial a statement? A community isn't a person. The point is that the environment cultivated by a group of people, including the author herself, was damaging. It's not a personal attack on individual people, it's an acknowledgment that a lot of small problems can add up to a big issue, and it also frames the author as partially culpable. Seems like a reasonable thing to say to me.
@@ellencoleman4604 the problem is that it's downplaying her agency and shifting the blame of her own actions onto others. i can understand the environment contributing to her poor mental health but she still has to take responsibility for what she did, and nowhere does she explicitly acknowledge or apologize for the harm she caused by faking her death.
@@ellencoleman4604 She's not making herself culpable she's shifting blame. Suicide is one of the most horrible things people and their families have to go through. Faking suicide is beyond scummy.
She could have left. She didn't need to go out on a big fan fair she could have just said "this community is terrible, I'm leaving. Peace" To try and pull in pity and sympathy and trick people into believing they had lost a friend is disgusting. And then she puts the blame on the community to avoid responsibility for it all. The community didn't make her type up a fake suicide story, she did that on her own and she's not apologised for it at all. She just blames someone else, or her mental health, or the community but she's not owned up to the fact that she's just a terrible person.
@@ellencoleman4604 it would be fair to blame them for contributing to mental health problems. It is not fair to blame them for her choosing to fake suicide, that action is her choice. Theres a huge difference between how you feel and what you do when it comes to questioning morals.
it wasnt fake suicide, it was a suicide attempt.
Izzzy is the only person who can look like my old Tumblr oc from 2014 and I admire her for that
@@PLEASESATANHELPME just ignore them
me too honestly
@Don't Read My Profile Picture guess what I just did.
@Don't Read My Profile Picture bot
We need to bring these designs back
I have a friend who is a finance bro. I introduced him to your content and he said "I have never felt further from the target audience but... She's awesome." He now watches all your videos. Greetings from Canada, another armpit of the Anglosphere 🍁✌️🥰
haha i love that!
Same. ❤
It's nice when someone finds content that they aren't the target audience for and can still enjoy/appreciate it. I hope you and your friend are doing well!
@Malhadado Epígono | Daybreak Yeah he does like IT for the revenue agency in Canada and stuff but he and I were / are huge internet bros in high school and got into all the deep lore and everything and so this just clicked with him
@@Cryptidkinger Nice!! Also, hi fellow Canuck! 👋 from Montreal, Canada 🍁🇨🇦🌨️ I laughed really hard at "another armpit of the Anglosphere" 🤣 thanks for sharing that
They just ignore everything else about the situation, especially how they guilt-shamed people into buying her books, and only talk about how much of a victim she is
this. they say it was a thing done as a last resort and to keep her away from writing because it hurt her mental health, but they did not hesitate to weaponize people's mourning and empathy to make a profit.
Yeah, she's not a victim here, and her family was not trying to help her.
It just doesn't make any sense if the actual for real issue was SM having access to this drama and having issues differentiating between reality and fiction which are all completely real and fair concerns. But hypothetically if that was the case and the family was mental enough to decide faking her death was the right choice then letting her have a fake account in the exact community you want hwe to leave is just counter intuitive. And I'm no psychologist but if someone is genuinely having difficulties differentiating what is reality, making them pretend they are DEAD doesn't seem particularly helpful. Not to mention that if this was set up by her family, the dynamics are so frightening and questionable. The way I see it there really are only three options , option one: her family is incredibly abusive to the point they feel entitled to decide whether she is publicly alive or dead, and then try to milk her grieving friends and fans when the money she was bringing in dries up. Or option two: she was behind this all herself due to an actual disconnect from reality. Or option three: she is a con artist. Nothing about this situation is black and white. Whatever purpose this lie served, it was morally deplorable. If she genuinely is suffering a mental illness so bad that she herself set this up with no bad intentions, but because she does not understand how this would effect people she is having, or has had a mental break and needs to be hospitalized.
@@cassandra_desainde Seeing as how she has a history of making fake Go Fund Me’s and the like, I’m leaning towards con artist/liking the attention she gets from these situations.
Especially how she talked about being upset about how no one was buying her books now that she was “dead”.
I think we all know a case or two like this from the fanfiction world. the only difference is that because there's money involved with book sales, the story changes from fandom drama to potential fraud, and thus, this is covered by actual news sources instead of getting a writeup on encyclopedia dramatica.
I honestly don't think this is it, but only because it's even sillier--I don't think the mainstream media really understands how "self-publishing" now works. It's literally no harder to do than posting fanfic, and the majority of Meachen's readers probably never bought a single copy of her books. They're all on Kindle Unlimited. I have fics on AO3 that have many more kudos than any of her books have ratings, and I can't stress enough that I'm nobody notable there.
I... don't think the media people covering this understand how completely irrelevant to the industry she was before this.
Is encyclopedia dramatica a thing?
@@Nassifeh What fandoms you write fanfic for?
Nah, you don't even get the luxury of an ED article these days, best I can give you is a 3 hour long video essay.
As a bipolar person, the way that they used her bipolar as an excuse pissed me off so much. Those of us with mental illnesses need help take responsibility for our actions and for those we hurt. Sometimes we can’t stop these events from happening but we can’t avoid accountability. Also her family was absolutely in the wrong here, faking a death is so fucked. Also they watched her spiral and engage in self destructive behaviors and didn’t do anything.
Exactly! It feels so infantilizing and, ironically, ableist. It’s like they think anyone who has a mental illness is just totally mindless and not in control of their actions instead of human beings with slight impairments they learn to work around.
@@alicethemad1613 Honestly. Like personality disorder need any more demonizing.
It’s super frustrating when I see people excuse all behaviors because of mental illnesses, they may be the reason but they aren’t an excuse. It’s also scary because the more people act like people with mental illnesses can’t be in control of any aspect of their life, including their own actions, the easier it is to argue we are a threat to those around us and ourselves, and push for forced hospitalization and involuntary commitment (just look at what NYC Mayor Eric Adams is doing with homeless folks, using the excuse that being homeless means they aren’t caring for themselves and throwing money at this instead of anything that’d be more meaningful).
Fr. I have bipolar too, and I haaaate when people w/o mental illness dismiss any criticism of a mentally ill person as ableist. Like try that shit with me and see what happens....i have treatment resistant bp and i dont abuse, kill, hurt people. It's insulting to imply I have no control of my life and actions.
Call me cynical, but I'm quite positive that the claim that "her family" started the hoax is another lie. She did it all herself.
As someone who designs covers, I am losing it over how poor the typography is on those covers. It covers the range from "boring" to "garish" to "downright unreadable." Makes me feel so much better about my own work.
dude honestly even as someone who doesn't have a lot of knowledge when it comes to graphic design those covers were still a nightmare to look at
i was thinking the exact same lmao. i design my own covers on canva for fun and they look 100 times better lmaooo
Listen I would be sympathetic if she didn’t 1) profit off her death 2) continue to run her own fan club under a different name 3) pointed fingers at others as the cause of her fake death 4) showed absolutely no remorse “let the fun begin”
4) That phrase alone annoys me about this ordeal because its so, so tone-deaf and... I don't know, entitled I guess, to think that her return like this (or at all) would be welcomed and celebrated. And the reality was more "bitch there will be no fun, buckle up"
bruh I am just paused at the beginning of the video when the daughter was like “sorry I thought everyone knew she was dead. dead people don’t post to social media.” i’ve re read this about a thousand times. is she implying that because the page had been inactive, everyone should have figured she was dead? sometimes alive people just don’t post to social media??? i’m so confused lmao I feel like there’s something i’m missing .
Lol no I don't think you're missing anything, it's just a bizarre implication/train of thought, and besides that, honestly really flippant in attitude for someone who supposedly lost her mother a few weeks prior. And then jumping straight into promoting her books afterwards...anyway, I simply do not believe that we've gotten the whole story from the family. I don't know if we'll ever get answers, but if I was a former fan of hers, I wouldn't even spare a glance at one of her books again.
I haven't posted on my facebook in about a month.
OoOoO I must be a GhOoOoOst
The more I've let this story sit in my gut the more it feels wrong. To me this feels like someone who was going through a psychotic break and believed she had posted something about her own death already, or maybe believed in her delusion that everyone was on her same wavelength of a disappearance being the same as death. I'm not sure her family was ever actually involved in this at all.
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 I don't think psychosis is involved. It's certainly plausible it was entirely the author's idea to fake her own death, but I don't think she was psychotic. When you're in the throes of psychosis, it's kind of impossible to hide (in my experience). You don't post coherent ads for your books.
It could be that she/her family are chronically online, or as you said mistakenly thought they had posted about her death already. There's a lot of better ways they could've done the fake death announcement I can think of, but maybe that says something concerning about me 😬
@@4nn4h Yeah, I suppose an ad would be a pretty unlikely thing to add at the end of something psychotic. I think it's just because the whole thing feels so weird and off, I can't come up with a cohesive story that makes sense without including some serious mental illness. The way that first post acts like it's perfectly normal to not make a heartfelt announcement about the author's death. Like "Oh, yeah, well she's dead, thought y'all knew. Eh w/e." If it was all her own idea, you'd think she would make a concerted effort to write her own fake obituary. If it was her family's idea, you'd think they would know people had no reason to believe she was dead.
Something is very fishy. I just don't understand why
As someone who's pretty heavily ingrained in the romance books community, it was **wild** watching all of this as it played out.
I was super excited when I saw the title of the video because I knew exactly what it was going to be about but also kind of nervous when I saw this video pop up, because it's so easy for someone to take potshots at the entire romance genre. I'm glad that wasn't the case!
I was watching those Amazon screenshots to see if I recognized the authors or book titles. 😂
Tbf, I've never seen a single video on this channel be disrespectful to the topic being covered!
As someone who lost a close friend to suicide, the guilt from such a loss is immense. Like staying-up-each-night-wondering-if-it-was-your-fault-or-what-you-could-have-differently-for-years kind of immense. I still feel guilt ridden over what happened and it took me a lot of counseling to finally accept I’m not an awful human being who let their friend die. I can’t imagine what it would be like experience all of that only to learn it was fake. To put someone through something like this is beyond cruel and I really hope her friends leave her. She may deserve sympathy for her mental illness but her actions were abominable, plain and simple.
this, to me, is inexcusable. as someone who's lost a friend, i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. it's one of the hardest parts of life. i can't imagine how hurt her ex-friends who she cruelly tricked are by this. grief is a monster, and the fact that she showed no remorse for the pain she caused makes me have 0 sympathy for this woman
0:15 Just a clarification: she called herself Meme, that’s a name for grandma that’s common in the southern US. It’s kinda like Nana, nanny, or memaw and is pronounced like meemee
OHHHHHHH yeah that makes sense! (This is extra embarrassing because I call my own grandma Mimi, and it still didn't occur to me for a second that it could be spelled the other way)
then what's a "meme war" at 10:45?
@@yveltalsea I mean, I'm sure she knows what a meme is, but describing herself as one seemed out of keeping with the rest of her bio.
@@yveltalsea you're supposed to post pics of grandmas fighting
You are legit that one character that a artist just keeps on changing the ocs design all the time and every time the oc looks so good✨
Omg yessss
Her makeup looks are so cute, I love that she has fun with it and has her own style
That's a good way to describe it! I always enjoy her oc designs XD
Faking your own death is one of the worst things you can do. It's the pain of losing someone on top of the pain of being backstabbed.
Mental health isn't an excuse for stuff like this.
Even if it's true that her family made the fake death announcement, not her, it's actually terrible that she chose to keep up the lie for so long. She could have corrected the issue at any time, she didn't have to wait two years.
And no, her mental health issues are not an excuse. Plenty of people suffer from depression and bullying without ever faking their own deaths and trying to scam people into buying their books 🙄
I have to say, those book covers are insane. Neon text, dozens of fonts, fancy curlicue scripts mixed with arial and comic sans; it’s very ‘graphic design is my passion’
I’ve heard of people online faking their deaths plenty of times before, but this is a really weird one.
My mom is an author, and i overheard her talking about this last month, so im really glad you made a video about this
You show her the video?
@@BJGvideos no actually, i might at somepoint if shes insterested
I'm really glad that you didn't tell a one-sided story and gave accounts from both sides as well as not telling us what to feel about it. When mental health is involved, it can be a really nuanced topic that you need to think about. I'm not sure what to think of it myself but there is definitely a breach of trust between the author and her fans and nobody should be blamed if they can't trust her anymore.
edit: I feel like I might have too light of an opinion on the topic as an outsider looking in, but also mental health should never be an excuse to do horrible things, including just rolling with your 'fake death' if it was actually done by her family and 'blaming(?)' people for low sales.
Also... she might have had mental health problems, but as far as I can tell her family didn't? Even if the whole thing was her idea and it was a genuine cry for help, they surely had the clarity to know that faking someone's death is kinda emotionally manipulative and fucked up.
A bipolar person faking their own suicide sucks for everyone involved but you can't really blame them. A family member going along with it (and clearly attempting to profit off it) is extremely messed up.
@@estherstreet4582 I don't know, I think mental health problems are influenced a lot by both environment and genetics. Also someone with severe mental health issue is going to effect those close to them in some way. We can't assume anything about the family's mental health.
@@ellencoleman4604 mental health isn't an excuse for people to do shitty things. It's a cause. Even if you do something that was the cause of mental health you still take responsibility for it instead of using it to hide behind a shield.
there really is no nuance here, she took so many steps to profit off from her fake death and secretly stay within the book community she insists harmed her
I was in fandom and on a lot of fanfic groups back in the Yahoo groups days. I knew personally of at least 4 fic writers who committed pseudocide. It’s not something new. Most of them blamed family members when they decided they missed fandom too much and wanted to come back. One woman kept a months long coma going by posting as “friends” keeping vigil at her bedside and then had one post that she’d died. I found her online years later alive and well. Most of the people from her group refused to believe she was actually alive. *shrug*
Something really funny to me about this situation as someone that speaks portuguese is that her surname is written almost like "find me" in portuguese ("me achem")
I think this story might be like, the worst case scenario for anything like this. Like you have someone that's struggling with healthy boundaries online, so you, as their family member, want to pull them out. Ok, so after she already made a post on pulling back from The Ward (which I'm sure came after some talks with her family and perhaps some mental health specialists) why do anything more? The MOST that should have been done was Meachen's daughter or partner making ONE post under her account to say something along the lines of, "for the sake of her well-being, she is on hiatus and stepping back-- for further Ward issues see the mods" or whatever, perhaps mentioning that she was in an external place like rehab or the like as she acclimatized to the world. But all this? And the fact that Meachen's "daughter" types like she does, and that the ruse went on for TWO years? Makes me feel like Meachen went along with it and wrote as her daughter to just relish in the drama, probably the exact opposite of what she needed to be doing if her supposed addiction was real. And that's all before the TN Steele business, and the "buy my moms books in 21 days Or Else!!" posts. The fact that she's making money off of this via her supposedly taken down books makes me so mad, just because of how it's clearly hurt so many people, including the author who was accused of bullying Meachen. Meachen's comment of, "It might be immoral, but not illegal" just infuriates me. Where is her apology to the people she hurt?
I'm obviously on the outside of all of this, only really fumed up on the idea of it all, so I appreciate Izzy talking about this very impartially. I clearly can't. I hope the people Meachen and her family harmed in all this are doing okay.
I agree that things don't add up. I'm willing to believe that her mental/addiction struggles are real, but her nonchalance during her interview is just so disgusting to me. Like, ok, MAYBE it was her family that started the whole thing off (not fully convinced yet but perhaps it was), but her defensiveness and unwillingness to apologize makes me think that if that was the case, she gladly took the opportunity to indulge her fantasies for her own emotional and financial benefit. It's like she thinks that her own mental health struggles absolve her from any real guilt and take precedence over everyone else's. What about the mental health of her friends and fans? Innocent people were accused of bullying a woman *literally* to death.
My thoughts exactly. Mental health is clearly something different for everyone, and I don't want to discredit Susan's genuine struggles. However, I still don't fully believe it's not all Susan's idea. I think there's just been far too many scams like this pulled for me to have benefit of the doubt. Her nonchalant response to everyone's hurt seems very callous-- it gives the air that she enjoyed two years of drama and profit.
I just wonder if her husband really did pull that stunt, or if he's just taking the fall so Susan doesn't have to. It's just super icky either way.
"It might be immoral but not illegal" is not a leg to stand on. I would not be surprised if every single thing was a lie. I was half expecting this to turn into a MsScribe style sockpuppet drama.
yeah, it was way more drastic than it needed to be.
This girl just puts on different costumes and make up every video and still make
It look unique and good lmao her creativity is just something else
Their actually not a girl shes nonbimary they do use she/they pronouns tho so u didn't mess up on the pronouns part
@@nonbinarybastard How are you nonbinary but you don't know the difference between there/their/they're 😭
@@boiled_egg_ bc some people are dyslexic or don't have English as their first language. I honestly don't understand what the problem is because we still know what they mean.
@@nxgan1088 It was a rhetorical question.
Tbh though non native speakers often have better grammar than natives haha
This whole thread is cancer.
It is one thing that the family did the act. It is another story for the author going along with it and act like everything is going to be fine coming back. Mental health is a serious thing. Take breaks when you need it, talk to someone that is willing to listen to you, do something that you love to help your mind, etc. If anything, all of this most likely adds more stress to the author as she is now dealing with the aftermath. Then there the trust issue if she ever decides to write another book.
i love the fact izzy always has different aesthetic makeup/look every video💜
I'm always somewhat taken aback when izzyzzz posts a video that's less than an hour long
Izzy, I've been watching your videos for 2 years now and the topics you cover are always so interesting, I've never heard of this woman before but I am now so invested in her story lmaoo
me when any izzyzzz video ever
same! i missed every bit of this story when it was happening haha
Same!
I mean... Izzy is legit that one deviantart OC but we all love her and admire her ♡♡♡ (this is a compliment btw, izzy is so epic
This is wild and it unlocked a memory of being on forums (like neopets or gaiaonline) or instant messaging chats (AIM, YIM, MSN, etc) and making friends with people who would make up second and third accounts and basically roleplay/catfish that they knew these people irl and then they'd "write them out" and it was just drama.... I can't be the only one that experienced being catfished in this non-romantic type of way?
(For context I'm a recovering alcoholic and this is the information that was given to *me* in hospital, idk if it's true or true everywhere) To my knowledge, one of the only things that disqualifies you from kidney or liver transplant lists is active or recent alcohol abuse! A lot of autoimmune patients v much need and can (with proper medical support) have uncomplicated transplants.
This is so wild to me as a children's author! I've just not really ever encountered this sort of group drama. Even when I was frequently posting on writing groups on Facebook/Twitter/Reddit, everyone was so supportive and friendly. You get the occasional not-so-nice person (and btw first rule of writing is never read your reviews and definitely never respond 😂) but I hope people aren't put off of joining the writing/book community because of this.
Have to say I completely empathise with mental health struggles and social media anxiety (been there!) but this was such a strange choice. Why not just tell everyone she deleted Facebook for mental health reasons rather than pretending she was dead? 🤔
I'm so happy to hear an author say not to read reviews! All the authors spreading hate related to reviews and ratings was the main reason why I as a reader left book twitter. There were just too much hate going around. I can't even hear an author ask for "a good review" without getting bad and most likely unfair associations. I have a suspicion that the vocal authors who can't handle criticism from readers are the same authors who refuse to get feedback from editors or friends before publication of their "baby"
Dying is way more exciting than taking a break, and it sounds like they were intent on capitalizing on it because they were certainly frustrated when that didn't do the trick.
@@litsspri869 I feel those people would benefit from pouring their thoughts and feelings into a diary before putting them into something that a lot of people are going to read and not like.
Seeing Izzy in a plain background is so oddly funny, I kind of love it😭
Izzzy is the definition of taking character customization to its limits. Fantastic look
Izzzyzzz looks like a character made with mods while we're using vanilla character creators
It’s a good day when you waking up dreading the adult stuff you have to do around the house and izzzy uploads a video to soften the blow
Honestly her author self description is a massive red flag already, exuding all that "I'm not like other authors" energy 🤡
Yeah but also that's exactly how you sell yourself in an oversaturated market. 'Buy my stuff, it's not like that other stuff, it's better.' Hardly a red flag for someone with their own business.
@@ellencoleman4604 I get your point, but disagree for this author's case. The way she words it implicitly puts other authors down instead of just focusing on her own unique approach - which is actually not at all unique, at least from the pitch.
She has pretty terrible grammar and spelling for an "author"
@@Kintsugi23 I was thinking that too! The punctuation was just missing in some parts. I don't know if some of it was due to a formatting error, but it seems like something you'd want to be extra careful proofreading as an author.
I do think that there is a lot of toxicity in the world of books & writing and it's very discouraging to me and other people who want to become authors some day, but I don't think that excuses Meachen's actions
This is a really cynical solution to the issue, but sometimes I think that there needs to be more of a barrier between authors and fans. A lot of authors are clearly struggling with the fact that everyone on social media has their own opinion on their hard work, and perhaps the best option is to just... take a step back. The same goes for fans, you shouldn't expect an author to respond to your criticisms or be present in fan spaces.
I'm an author and I really haven't encountered much of this at all! Perhaps it's because I write children's books, but there is very little drama or open competition and I've met so many really lovely and supportive people. So I wouldn't be put off, sometimes it's just about finding the right places to hang out I think.
@@estherstreet4582 I wouldn't call it cynical, moreso logical. The amount of drama on Goodreads that boils down to "Author seething bc not everyone treats their work like it should get a Pulitzer just for existing." As well as targeted harassment from readers either in white knight attempts or other reasons. It would be a lot better to go back to when the worst thing you could do to an author whose works you hate is just not reading them.
@@Sophie_Cleverly A very good chunk of drama I hear about is in the YA world specifically. It famously can get pretty volatile, so I think staying away from that area will probably cut down on the amount of toxicity. But, of course, I think a big problem is that the internet is still relatively new and so much of this is uncharted and society hasn't really figured out how to deal with a lot of issues yet.
@@tarotsushima3332 I just feel like I see a lot of baseless criticism towards writers for the littlest things nowadays. Like people can be very nitpick-y and I find it discouraging because I write for pleasure but I also want to share my ideas with other people.
Like I feel like I have to make my stories absolutely perfect or I'll end up getting straight-up hate comments and a CZcams video or two reviewing my book and calling it trash.
I don't expect any accolades for my writing, I just wish I could write without a fear of heavy criticism
I know a bit of it is just in my head, but I've seen hateful comments made about books and other media I love and it feeds into my anxiety and crippling fear of failure and criticism
I love how every other CZcamsr just shuts down in January while Izzy’s out here releasing one banger after the other
I was hoping this was going to be covered. How do you just fake a death and come back after what you've done. That's so wild to me.
I just had a failed ER visit and coming home to see Izzzy uploaded has really lifted the anxiety, thank you so much
This is such a wild story. I cannot even imagine the emotions of everyone involved. Especially those closest to her. However, I can also understand how mental health can be affected in a community like that. There was just a better way to go about it for sure.
Also you are SLAYING this look. It reminds me of skeleanimals. ❤️🖤
Izzy, I’m gonna need you to make a second channel for how you do your makeup and outfits for your videos because your style is just SUPERB.👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Ig this is the story I've heard being referenced on Booktok drama lists. Yeah the whole thing is insanely wild but I will say, mental struggles and the absolute hellhole the book sectors of social media are aside, the family member basically holding those books on ransom so people can keep giving money despite only even pulling this stunt out of concern for the author's mental wellbeing is absolutely scummy, no ifs or buts. The fact that the author didn't also expose the ruse as soon as she could is suspect as well. I wouldn't blame anyone who got soured off of her works once this all blows over.
I have no idea about any of this and I have not intent on reading any of their works, but gosh darn will I watch an entire web documentary about it if Izzy is talking about it
I need a video on this girl called Izzzyzzz, she's like one of the best video essayests I've ever watched. I think a video on the rise of her could be really cool.
izzy is nb! :3
When it comes to legallity I'm not sure on US law but there may be a case you could make for fraud here. The family posted that she died and then said for fans to support her books to help the family. That could be seen as misleading the possible buyers.
Super surreal seeing self-published authors being mentioned on a large channel. I am one! Not in that genre, but of urban fantasy/dystopia. It's indeed hard out there. But yeah... drama indeed. I never thought I'd see drama from the writing community come up here!
Doesn't matter why they did it, they got money from her "death" and caused her friends massive trauma. Some people just aren't good people. That's her and her family.
As an independent author, thank you for addressing this topic without disparaging self published authors and their books.
I have a friend who would read "romance" books in class when we were in high school. Romance in quotes because they were literally the text equivalent of adult-oriented, shall we say, videos. The covers of these books could pass as thumbnails from said videos. Honestly not sure how those books were allowed in school but girls couldn't have their shoulders exposed.
One time, a math teacher warned her about half a dozen times to put the book down and focus on the lesson, and then he took the the book. Gave it back when the class hour was finished, though. This happened when we were like 15 or 16. We're 22, going on 23, and she STILL "hates" that teacher for taking her book after multiple warnings. Hate is the word she uses, but I just call it a weird hill to die on.
If the one story of Susan’s family just deciding to fake her death online while she was in therapy is true, then I feel so bad for her.
Late to the party but I’m so glad you talked about this. It was a crazy drama in the writing/book community and i honestly think it was genius marketing if it was a hoax.
I feel like we're getting close to Izzy getting scene hair and raccoon tails
This whole situation is so weird. She made a post about leaving the community so why fake her death not long after?? Very messed up either way
I’ve seen so many videos covering this and yours is the first to go so in depth on a lot of the posts. Great vid!
As soon as I heard about this story, I knew I needed you to cover it! That's some wild internet stuff right there
Honestly, was it SO hard for her to just say she was going on hiatus for a bit? It’s certainly easier to deal with then pretending to be dead for several years
EDIT: Remind me to fully watch the video first, though still her family and close ones really should have said she was on hiatus instead of straight up saying she k*lled herself.
I love how thoroughly researched your videos are! Everyone else has been sharing the same single screenshot around and around but you've dug into the details and got to the bottom of things
Happy Birthday, Izzy!! I’ve been binge watching your videos all week and I’m so excited to see this one!
No need to apologize for the background Izzy! Great video as always!
This reminds me of how fanfiction authors leave their book incomplete from months to years.
I mean, as a fanfiction author myself, I also did stop writing for a few months to a year, but I made sure to check in with everyone who follows me and I made sure they knew the truth, that at the time, my mental health was so bad it made me not want to do anything at all. That when I tried to write I had no motivation to. And that's where I think Susan and her family went wrong. They could have said that she wouldn't write anymore because her family thought it was taking a toll on her and everyone would have accepted that just fine. But they played with everyone.
I thought I wouldn't enjoy this video because I tend to prefer the more "quirky internet history" ones, but I once again stand corrected. I coul watch you talk about the history of dishwashers, you have such a great way of presenting things that makes it so simple to focus on you and the things you're saying. I wish you did videos for school stuff and work stuff so that I would actually pay attention
I'm so glad you're covering this! It's such a wild story and I was hoping to see your take on it!
The amount of research and detail you have in these videos is insane Izzy! Thank you for all of your hard work, it does not go unappreciated! ♥️
Why does Izzy always have the best fit? I am jealous of their style.
Your videos are so addicting, I can't stop binging!! Please post more content like this, it's so interesting and easily digestible for those that don't know much about these communities!
I'm so thrilled you're covering this!
I swear I thought I had just gotten a new channel recommended, and I clicked because the title sounded interesting. Was so shook when you started talking, I recognized your voice and checked the channel name, and it was you omg
Love all your different looks so much 💕
Really excited to watch this as this entire situation fascinates me. Also the makeup & hair ?? Fantastic!! Also happy birthday!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY IZZY!!! thanks for uploading today!
This was rly interesting! I appreciate your nuanced take on what happened
Not only do i love every topic you cover, I’m always excited to see the make up look of the week, i want an excuse to try out colors and patterns and makeup but don’t have an event or reason for it, so i absolutely love living vicariously thru you!!!! Thanks for putting in so much effort to your videos theyre a guiding light in my boring sad life (seasonal depression ima be okay friends)
Never really comment but I recently found your channel and have binged every video, specifically enjoy the videos that go over shit from when I was a kid, online flash games/etc etc. you and billiam are my favorite creators when I want to watch content covering things I feel nostalgic about. Keep it up
Oooh, I wasn’t expecting you to cover this but I’ve been obsessed with this since I’ve been really into the book reviewer community lately!! I’m excited to see your coverage and I love your makeup today!
love your niche content plus your calming and lighthearted tone you use :) its such a fun commentary style. you're one of my favorite youtubers!
Izzys look is as stable as my mental health
Ever changing but still stunning
Izzzyzzz makeup is always on point, it’s the highlight of every video
Videos like this sure bring me to the olden days of 2000s to mid 2010s, what an era that was. *hits the pipe*
I agree the idea of "paranormal bully romance" as a (sub-?)genre is... different, but considering SM's profession, I guess the dedication isn't /that/ strange. Then again, I've used the Internet for over 20 years, so my litmus test for weird might differ.
Istg izzzyzzz is always the first to make vids on topics nobody else would. I learn so much random shit from her vids and I love it
Only Izzzy would apologize for filming in a "normal" space 🤣
these bookfronts look like 2010s wattpad stories, which reminds me i actually ended up in the hospital and ward after an attempt and didnt continue my wattpad fanfic for couple months luckily no one noticed
just the other day i heard about this, I'm so happy you are making a video, the story is crazy
it’s always a good day when izzy posts
Izzy is amazing ngl, just vibes all around and great to listen too while doing work or just chilling
ive heard so much about this drama, glad you covered this so i can finally get the full story
Izzy I love that you covered this because as soon as I heard about this. I instantly thought "this is some MSN, back in the day Livejournal shit." .
Another unusual "Romance novel trope" was Amish romance novels. Extremely popular
Rest in peace susan meachen, gone but not forgotten 😔
Wait I think I missed some important detail...
LOL
Gone but not forgotten. Or Gone, it would seem.
What a crazy story!! Also omg your makeup in this video is immaculate ✨
you should make a video about the no fly list getting hacked. this is genuinely the most intriguing string of events i've ever seen in my life
this is very likely already on her to do list but it's probably better to wait a while before tackling it given how it's still a developing situation and all that
I love watching videos about topics I've never heard of
thank you so much for the videos you make! i love deep dives into niche topics and you have the best topics delivered in a funny yet informative way. you always have the best makeup and outfits too and inspire me to be more creative! my gf and i love your videos and i hope you enjoy what you do :)