A follow-up on LiveJournal's announcement(s) of sponsored communities that did not exactly make the masses jubilant:

There's a merry gathering in a post in the scienceofsleep comm, which is the first sponsored community to be featured by LJ.

It all begins with yellowdello2112's announcement that the movie "made [her] a different person".

There is some agreement.

Then it starts with insomnia's comment (oh, how fitting a username).

And we are off with insults hurled towards those who said they liked the movie, discussions about boycotting it, the obligatory calls of No Myspace!, questions as to who is a sockpuppet and who isn't, people advising others to download movies featured in sponsored comms from torrent sites, a user pimping an alternative community, which is not being taken kindly by those who feel the user missed the point, enlightening insights in the movie industry, questioning of the OP's motives, Arabian proverbs.

This thread finally gets down to the core of the problem: now we cannot tell who is real on the internet anymore:

Of course, this is the worst thing about "sponsored communities": they destroy trust. We can no longer trust that a user is a real user, not a corporate sock puppet. We cannot tell who is an actual emo kid and who is an astroturfer.

But what about the nurses and the Pakistani Ladies?

Also, I learnt a new word: Astroturfing.


ETA: Comment deletion has begun.