I don't know why I was naive enough to think Katers17 would leave the internet forever. But I guess we can talk about it. Again.
Someone linked me the video (thanks for that, by the way) of her explanation as to why she left again. It's on an entirely new channel and everything, and appeared to have probably a couple dozen videos already. The gist of the whining was her claiming she got hacked, claimed she got sick, and now claims she's broke. So she's back to vlogging and literally begging people to send her money. I never thought I'd see the day that it came to outright panhandling.
But let's take this apart objectively rather than being a generalizing asshole about the situation.
So, the hacking. They hacked her wifi, she said. They got into all of her accounts, and then deleted them. She didn't say a word about them stealing her identity, stealing her money, stalking her, no. Nothing reasonably attributable to a crook, or even a lunatic fan. This person just got into her wifi and proceeded to post messages as her before inevitably deleting her accounts.
This is 2014, and yet despite the world becoming a much more technology-savvy place, television still has everyone convinced that hacking is a magical skill which lets you break into literally any piece of technology in roughly five minutes and have full control over it and its information. And yet that's not how it works at all, no matter how hard they tried to make you think Chloe Sullivan characters can really exist.
Without getting too deep into the techno-babble if possible, let's just briefly touch on what exactly the common ways are to "hack" wifi. There are basically three common ways to run your wifi: open (no password at all), WEP, or WPA/WPA2. Right off the bat I'll tell you that WEP is useless. It's literally like putting a deadbolt on your front door and leaving the key sitting in it. It keeps out the casual person trying to borrow your internet, but someone who wants to take a look can do so within seconds, and that's no exaggeration. It's a broken encryption algorithm. That leaves you with WPA and WPA2, which are safer, but only so long as you used a proper password. If you used your house address, or a simple dictionary word, then you're much more easily screwed here because it can be brute-forced. But all routers default to using WPA or WPA2, so assuming you weren't dumb enough to turn it off, and used a decent password, then you should be reasonably secure.
And before you think web encryption methods such as SSL are going to save you on an open or vulnerable internet connection, think again. Look up terms like "man in the middle", "arp poisoning", "sslstrip", "self-signed certificate", etc, and various combinations. Encryption is only as safe as its ability to be used, and there are ways to simply circumvent it once you have access to the person's internet connection.
But for a moment, let's actually believe her. She was "hacked". So Kate either falls into the category of being stupid enough to use her internet on a vulnerable connection, or she used a stupid password. This is a girl who has admitted to being stalked by fans before, so if it was her who failed to secure her own internet properly, then she was practically begging for this to happen. But sure, okay, for a moment, she was "hacked".
So you broke in; what kind of hacker are you? Are you a thief? Are you a stalker? If you're either, then wouldn't common sense dictate that you're going to want to stay hidden? You finally got into her internet, you got into her accounts, wouldn't it now make sense to just lay low and consume her information while she's completely oblivious? Why would you start making posts as her? (Which she didn't mention the nature of.) Why would you start deleting accounts? What does that possibly gain for you? Especially if you're a thief; you just cut off a source of her income for you to steal! If you're a stalker, you just cut off her vlogs. And in both cases, you revealed yourself and are probably going to get locked out now, unless you were able to exploit something in the browser to get a hold on the machine itself. Though if she suspected hacking she would probably reinstall everything, too. So you're out. And the final outcome is that you gained nothing except some girl's misery.
No, the only way that the hacking thing makes sense is if someone was wanting to be vindictive towards her personally, and that gets into a whole 'nother category of lawbreaking. Yet she never once commented to being the victim to anything this sinister. She was simply "hacked". The kind of thing you just shrug off as something that sucks, something that randomly happens, but that's life.
Yeah, no.
The reason I don't buy it is because she honestly looks like she flipped her shit at some point. She said after the hacking that she got "sick" but she never told what from. What it sounds like is that she had a breakdown or some similar mental disorder, cut off her hair, said some crazy stuff online, deleted her accounts, and then after they treated her in some place, she's "better" now. And now she regrets it and is going to play the "I was hacked" card, the same one that politicians and celebrities love to pull when they do something stupid, in order to try to get her accounts back and gain public sympathy.
And the Katers 17 channel? She claims she never logged into it during this entire period of weeks during which she was compromised. Yeah, sure. You're an internet celebrity, and you never once logged into your primary account to check for messages or anything?
I personally think she stopped vlogging for some sudden career change (since vlogging had been her career), maybe left Cory for some other guy around the same time, and when neither of those things worked out, she realized just how bad she had fucked up and she just fucking lost it. But that's just my assumption, who knows.
As for her begging for money, fuck that. Her dad was sitting on the couch behind her while she was making one of those scenes. If she's stooped to begging her audience for money, then she can ask her dad for money. And I'm sure he'd only be too willing to help his daughter. Hell, he'd probably be willing to move her back to where he lives and let her stay there for a little while until she gets on her feet. But no, instead, she's going to pandhandle for money to stay in expensive CA and keep trying to get her career going while drinking Starbucks, while resorting to vlogging again in the meantime.
This is basically the typical celebrity trainwreck failed success story, except by someone who was still down at e-celeb status and got too big for her britches too quickly. She wasn't Shay-Carl. She wasn't Charles Trippy. She was still practically an internet nobody. And she thought she could leave vlogging for a real career, apparently. Looks like she shouldn't have been so ready to fuck her audience over, because it's going to take her a while to ever build that back up again.
Anyway, whatever. I think I ran out of steam on this one. Hopefully it's coherent in expressing my thoughts on the subject without needing a follow-up. There are other things I wanted to post about here lately, but I ended up back on this topic again, unfortunately!
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Saturday, June 28, 2014
The End, Again?
Oh wow, deja vu.
Remember when Kate gave her audience the proverbial middle finger and left, leaving all of the fanboys to bawww and claim that there must be a reason, that she'd never just leave her fans like that?
Well, apparently she did it again, just as abruptly. And probably for good this time.
As George Bush once so eloquently butchered: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I wasn't shamed though of course, and likely nor were the kinds of people who would read this blog. I'd come to accept the kind of person she was. Or the kind of person she became, rather. So none of it was particularly surprising. In fact, none of the stuff I've been hearing lately comes as a surprise. The only surprising part is probably that it took me this many months to learn about it. I've been busy and never even thought to look at the comments here or I'd have known sooner.
I'm just going to cut right to the chase. I doubt that her deleting her channel has anything at all to do with stalking or anything of the sort. I also don't think she deleted it simply from being tired of it. That channel would have still gotten thousands of views a month, and that was free money. We know how much Kate loves money, as seen when she felt it okay to trick her fans into voting for her to win $20k of furniture, so she wouldn't have given that source of income up lightly.
No, the more obvious reason here is that she's gotten herself mixed up with a new crowd of people and doesn't want her newfound fame potential to be marred by anyone finding the vlog. Re-inventing yourself is hard when you have video evidence readily available of what you used to be. This would help explain why the main channel still exists, because that's resume material. I heard someone say it was hackers who deleted her accounts, and that she managed to re-upload her Katers17 channel, but no. All of the original dates are on those videos.
If you need further proof of her new life, just search Google. You can see her and her freshly sheared head posing ridiculously next to some people I've never seen before in my life, on some kind of lower-key red carpet event. Since she never quite managed to achieve Charles Trippy/Shay Carl level of Youtube celebrity despite how hard she tried to insert herself into their circle, and since Cory proved that he was never going to move further up in the world and was actually on the other side of the creative hill, she's gone and shoehorned herself into some other group of people to ride on the coattails of.
But the hair. Good God, the hair. She looks hideous. People can try to defend it as much as they want, but she's no Annie Lennox, not with those pearly white horse teeth sticking out when she smiles, which are far more noticeable now. No, she's down closer to the Britney Spears tier, but I don't even think she can blame insanity. We're talking worse than Britney Spears, because it was more likely a publicity stunt. I mean, this is someone who staged the beginning of a relationship for views. Once you go that far down that path, nothing is out of the question. At least temporary insanity is excusable. Attention-whoring is not.
Meanwhile, I hear Cory was seen with Steph again in one of his videos. I haven't seen it, I don't know the context, and I'm not sure I care enough to go find it. But I just roll my eyes to that whole thing. No surprise whatsoever. He's one of those people who just can't deal with being alone, and will go back to whatever's available, even if that's something which only resulted in misery before. To be someone with a bit of fame and looks, he sure doesn't seem to be able to make new friends outside of that same old circle. That was the case during all of the vlogs, for both him and Kate for that matter. And the handful of friends you ever did happen to see them with were rarely anything to write home about. I never could understand that. They must have had pretty bad personalities off-camera.
Anyway, maybe I'm being too harsh, but whatever. I lost all sympathy for these people, or for the people who kept clinging to the smattering of videos they tossed out. If your feelings are hurt, then good, you should be mad, you should be upset. Maybe this will be a good learning experience on who to trust, and when to stop trusting them. You're never too young to learn that lesson.
In a world where faking everything for money has become business as usual, never take anything for face value.
Remember when Kate gave her audience the proverbial middle finger and left, leaving all of the fanboys to bawww and claim that there must be a reason, that she'd never just leave her fans like that?
Well, apparently she did it again, just as abruptly. And probably for good this time.
As George Bush once so eloquently butchered: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I wasn't shamed though of course, and likely nor were the kinds of people who would read this blog. I'd come to accept the kind of person she was. Or the kind of person she became, rather. So none of it was particularly surprising. In fact, none of the stuff I've been hearing lately comes as a surprise. The only surprising part is probably that it took me this many months to learn about it. I've been busy and never even thought to look at the comments here or I'd have known sooner.
I'm just going to cut right to the chase. I doubt that her deleting her channel has anything at all to do with stalking or anything of the sort. I also don't think she deleted it simply from being tired of it. That channel would have still gotten thousands of views a month, and that was free money. We know how much Kate loves money, as seen when she felt it okay to trick her fans into voting for her to win $20k of furniture, so she wouldn't have given that source of income up lightly.
No, the more obvious reason here is that she's gotten herself mixed up with a new crowd of people and doesn't want her newfound fame potential to be marred by anyone finding the vlog. Re-inventing yourself is hard when you have video evidence readily available of what you used to be. This would help explain why the main channel still exists, because that's resume material. I heard someone say it was hackers who deleted her accounts, and that she managed to re-upload her Katers17 channel, but no. All of the original dates are on those videos.
If you need further proof of her new life, just search Google. You can see her and her freshly sheared head posing ridiculously next to some people I've never seen before in my life, on some kind of lower-key red carpet event. Since she never quite managed to achieve Charles Trippy/Shay Carl level of Youtube celebrity despite how hard she tried to insert herself into their circle, and since Cory proved that he was never going to move further up in the world and was actually on the other side of the creative hill, she's gone and shoehorned herself into some other group of people to ride on the coattails of.
But the hair. Good God, the hair. She looks hideous. People can try to defend it as much as they want, but she's no Annie Lennox, not with those pearly white horse teeth sticking out when she smiles, which are far more noticeable now. No, she's down closer to the Britney Spears tier, but I don't even think she can blame insanity. We're talking worse than Britney Spears, because it was more likely a publicity stunt. I mean, this is someone who staged the beginning of a relationship for views. Once you go that far down that path, nothing is out of the question. At least temporary insanity is excusable. Attention-whoring is not.
Meanwhile, I hear Cory was seen with Steph again in one of his videos. I haven't seen it, I don't know the context, and I'm not sure I care enough to go find it. But I just roll my eyes to that whole thing. No surprise whatsoever. He's one of those people who just can't deal with being alone, and will go back to whatever's available, even if that's something which only resulted in misery before. To be someone with a bit of fame and looks, he sure doesn't seem to be able to make new friends outside of that same old circle. That was the case during all of the vlogs, for both him and Kate for that matter. And the handful of friends you ever did happen to see them with were rarely anything to write home about. I never could understand that. They must have had pretty bad personalities off-camera.
Anyway, maybe I'm being too harsh, but whatever. I lost all sympathy for these people, or for the people who kept clinging to the smattering of videos they tossed out. If your feelings are hurt, then good, you should be mad, you should be upset. Maybe this will be a good learning experience on who to trust, and when to stop trusting them. You're never too young to learn that lesson.
In a world where faking everything for money has become business as usual, never take anything for face value.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
The End?
So hey, I haven't written here in forever. Been busy, and haven't thought of anything particularly interesting enough to ramble about. But somebody commented to tell me that Katers and Cory broke up. I didn't know whether to believe it at first, but I found the vlog and confirmed it. Given how much I've blabbed about them in the past, I figure it only makes sense to say my piece and wrap this topic up for good.
About the only thing I can say regarding the breakup itself is that I'm not surprised. At all. These are two people around ten years apart in age from two completely different parts of the world. Cory gives the impression of being an emotional roller coaster, and seemingly content to keep doing what he's doing, while Kate gives the impression that she's too motivated to sit still or to want to deal with someone or something she perceives as holding her back. He was her proverbial stepping stone to live and start a career in America, but she's apparently ready to step forward again.
As for Cory's vlog about it, I can't comment too much on his reaction. These people are actors, even in their vlogs, and I have to take all of it with a grain of salt. He appeared upset, and I suppose some small part of me still feels bad for him if he's hurt. But then I remind myself of how the audience was misled and lied to, including about their relationship, which just makes me have mixed feelings. Call it karma, perhaps. Especially if some of the other accusations we heard about were true.
I didn't see any comment from Kate about it. I looked at her channel, but I don't particularly enjoy sitting through her videos anymore to find anything. She's even more different now than when I stopped watching. Skipping through, I never saw anything that looked like tears, so I assume she hasn't said anything. Then again, who's to say she would even cry about it? She sure didn't in her "the vlogs are over" video. Not to mention, she took up that mentality of making sure her channel was based entirely around positivity, deleting or banning anything negative in her comments to enforce that, so perhaps she wouldn't mention it at all. Especially when it could mean a possible drop in views. I think the initial potential romance drove some of her viewers to keep watching, and then it peaked when the relationship began. A relationship ending is pretty much the credits rolling for those people.
The thing that bugged me about Cory's video though was that here he was, publicly sharing this with everyone, and yet at the same time telling people not to talk about it in the comments. You're dropping a bombshell on people who have followed this saga for years, and now you're telling them not to voice their feelings? But at least he told his fans, which I guess is more than I can say for Kate (to my knowledge).
Like I said, they're from different parts of the world. Kate might have lived in America for a few years now, but England is still her home. I doubt she feels particularly anchored. She could probably decide to move anywhere for her career if it fancied her to do so. I mean, she moved across the ocean for it to begin with, after all. I don't think Cory would be as willing. Cory's also older, more at an age where he would want to settle down a bit, where as Kate's just getting started. People like Kate, who lived much of their early life as more of a hermit from lack of confidence, are going to spend more time being carefree after coming out of their shells.
As for what I said about Cory being her stepping stone, I won't go as far as to say that I think Kate used him. There's no way to really know that for sure. But I think it's safe to say that without him she probably wouldn't be where she is. It's also safe to assume Kate will bounce back just fine and move on, but Cory is the one to be more concerned about. He seemed somewhat clingy towards her, and his emotional state goes to such extremes that you'd almost worry that he might do something stupid. As far as I know, he's never done anything like that, but you can't help but wonder. Hopefully there's people around to keep an eye on him.
Anyway, yeah, like I said, it was inevitable. I saw people saying in Youtube comments that it's all a total shock, but perhaps I'm at an age where I'm able to see these things more easily. These kinds of relationships just don't tend to work out. They not only grew up in different decades, but on different continents. There's not enough in common in the long run. And that's completely aside from the personality differences. It wasn't meant to be.
Oh well, it was a long time coming, but at least the soap opera is over. I doubt I'll have any reason to look in on either one of them from now on. So I wish them just as much luck as either deserves, whether that's for better or worse, in finding what they're looking for.
About the only thing I can say regarding the breakup itself is that I'm not surprised. At all. These are two people around ten years apart in age from two completely different parts of the world. Cory gives the impression of being an emotional roller coaster, and seemingly content to keep doing what he's doing, while Kate gives the impression that she's too motivated to sit still or to want to deal with someone or something she perceives as holding her back. He was her proverbial stepping stone to live and start a career in America, but she's apparently ready to step forward again.
As for Cory's vlog about it, I can't comment too much on his reaction. These people are actors, even in their vlogs, and I have to take all of it with a grain of salt. He appeared upset, and I suppose some small part of me still feels bad for him if he's hurt. But then I remind myself of how the audience was misled and lied to, including about their relationship, which just makes me have mixed feelings. Call it karma, perhaps. Especially if some of the other accusations we heard about were true.
I didn't see any comment from Kate about it. I looked at her channel, but I don't particularly enjoy sitting through her videos anymore to find anything. She's even more different now than when I stopped watching. Skipping through, I never saw anything that looked like tears, so I assume she hasn't said anything. Then again, who's to say she would even cry about it? She sure didn't in her "the vlogs are over" video. Not to mention, she took up that mentality of making sure her channel was based entirely around positivity, deleting or banning anything negative in her comments to enforce that, so perhaps she wouldn't mention it at all. Especially when it could mean a possible drop in views. I think the initial potential romance drove some of her viewers to keep watching, and then it peaked when the relationship began. A relationship ending is pretty much the credits rolling for those people.
The thing that bugged me about Cory's video though was that here he was, publicly sharing this with everyone, and yet at the same time telling people not to talk about it in the comments. You're dropping a bombshell on people who have followed this saga for years, and now you're telling them not to voice their feelings? But at least he told his fans, which I guess is more than I can say for Kate (to my knowledge).
Like I said, they're from different parts of the world. Kate might have lived in America for a few years now, but England is still her home. I doubt she feels particularly anchored. She could probably decide to move anywhere for her career if it fancied her to do so. I mean, she moved across the ocean for it to begin with, after all. I don't think Cory would be as willing. Cory's also older, more at an age where he would want to settle down a bit, where as Kate's just getting started. People like Kate, who lived much of their early life as more of a hermit from lack of confidence, are going to spend more time being carefree after coming out of their shells.
As for what I said about Cory being her stepping stone, I won't go as far as to say that I think Kate used him. There's no way to really know that for sure. But I think it's safe to say that without him she probably wouldn't be where she is. It's also safe to assume Kate will bounce back just fine and move on, but Cory is the one to be more concerned about. He seemed somewhat clingy towards her, and his emotional state goes to such extremes that you'd almost worry that he might do something stupid. As far as I know, he's never done anything like that, but you can't help but wonder. Hopefully there's people around to keep an eye on him.
Anyway, yeah, like I said, it was inevitable. I saw people saying in Youtube comments that it's all a total shock, but perhaps I'm at an age where I'm able to see these things more easily. These kinds of relationships just don't tend to work out. They not only grew up in different decades, but on different continents. There's not enough in common in the long run. And that's completely aside from the personality differences. It wasn't meant to be.
Oh well, it was a long time coming, but at least the soap opera is over. I doubt I'll have any reason to look in on either one of them from now on. So I wish them just as much luck as either deserves, whether that's for better or worse, in finding what they're looking for.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
