Is it possible to consider this “hoax” as a sort of work of art? If a lot of people believed it and got emotionally involved in it, is that necessarily a bad thing? Isn’t that what a good book or movie should do? If the girl got any money, she should have sent it back, but for all we know that situation never came up. So I think the survey should have at least one more option for the people who thing that really this wasn’t a hoax, rather a interesting and engaging fiction. hmmm?

Originads – I’ve created the option for you, but I don’t necessarily agree. People get involved with books and movies, yes, but 99% of the time they go in with the expectation that what they’re about to see is fiction. (And the other 1% are usually fiction masquerading as truth anyway, like “Fargo” or “The Blair Witch Project.”) While you might consider a weblog to be a similar form of entertainment, I think a lot of people have a more sincere belief that each site represents a real person. I’m not saying fake journaling isn’t a legitimate art form; somebody over here in the UK published the “diary” of Brooklyn Beckham, the son of Posh Spice and her famous footballer husband. It was hilarious. Of course, since the kid was, like, two-years-old everybody KNEW it was a joke. I don’t think the Kaycee thing was meant as a joke. And it wasn’t like an author using a pseudonym either. “Kaycee” actually talked to people on the phone. They sent her gifts and mourned her when she died. Where’s the line between entertainment and fraud? Does this mean I can make up a story about having cancer and snail-mail it to people, hoping they’ll send me money? Can I then claim that I was only doing it as a form of art and entertainment?