Evie Whiting

Fan
Name:	Evie Whiting
Alias(es):
Type:
Fandoms:	X-Files
Communities:
Other:
URL:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Evie Whiting was an X-Files fan.

She is most known as a case of Münchausen by Internet, and her antics in that fandom in 2002 were regarded as especially capricious and cruel coming on the heels of the death of beloved fan Leyla Harrison.

Pseuicide and Munchausen by Internet

Fans on several X-Files message boards, including Idealist's Haven, were told that beloved fanfic writer and beta reader Evie Whiting was dying of pneumonia in Australia. Evie was the recent mother of twin babies. Her husband, Adam, posted news she had died, and included her farewell message to fans.

One announcement:

June 15, 2002: Evie Whiting passed at 12:30 Sunday morning. Evie and I lost touch after my computer crashed many months ago. My heart is broken. I will always love you Evie. Thank you for listening to my ponderings, about fic and about life. You took me through a few hard times. My heart goes out for her children and her husband. Evie was a truely amazing woman. I love you.

Another announcement:

Evie Whiting, a shipper fanfic author and co-webmistress of Fic Scouts, passed away just after midnight on Sunday, June 16 (AEST). She was 22 years old and is survived by her husband, Adam, and their children. She died of flu/pneumonia-related complications. Evie was a regular on the fic boards at The Haven, and Adam is visiting there, so that might be the best place for condolence messages. He'll also monitor her email address for a while. I didn't know Evie particularly well, but she always impressed me as someone

with a great love for life. I have the same kind of pang I had when we lost Leyla Harrison and Lee Burwasser, both of whom made their presence felt in this community in very vibrant ways. She'll be missed.

Fans quickly organized and began talking about doing some fundraising for her family.

But when Evie's "husband" posted the details of his "wife's" funeral in Calcutta, many fans radar went on the alert. A fan named "Kim on the Journey" wrote:

I wanted to direct this post to Adam, and to all who are mourning Evie Whiting: I think you should be prepared to hear something that may cause a lot of pain.

There's no nice way to say this, but I was thinking that it would be better to hear it this way, than be surprised by it.

I'm here and there and everywhere in XF fandom - hardly any kind of important or central person, but I do talk to a lot of friends. And from them, and from friends of friends, and from people I don't even know well, I am getting a lot of 'buzz' that there are people who question this tragedy, quite a lot.

I believe that there are concerns over the facts of Evie Whiting's life and death. To put it bluntly, this is being considered a hoax, very much like the Kaycee Nicole hoax of some years back.

There are some startling similarities - a loveable young woman, tragically taken before her time, the existence of an online community who loved and cared for her, the absence of offline contacts, the increasing amount of attention as illness progressed, the scantness of detail, documentation, or evidence, after death, the outpouring of sympathy, love, grief, and offers of memorial gifts or even family financial assistance.

Another fan wrote:

I don't wish to call any more attention to this affair than I have to, but as a matter of accuracy, I have to let you know that the death of Evie Whiting appears to be an elaborate hoax. Evie says that the perpetrator is a former friend of hers with access to her computer. The whys and wherefores of who perpetrated it and why are being debated in other forums, and I doubt we will ever know the truth. But the good news is that whatever did happen, we have not suffered the death of one of our own. I find the whole affair pretty distasteful, obviously, and I apologise for my part in inadvertantly passing on misinformation. I really don't want to open up the discussion here. If you wish to be part of the debates over this matter, they're happening at the Haven fic boards. For my part, I think the less said, the better.

A fan described the scene after fans began to suspect that Evie's death, and life, had been fake:

And with that first shot, the firestorm was unleashed. Bitter, recriminative posts flooded the boards, full of rage that their emotions had been so manipulated. Adam responded bitterly, then someone posted claiming to be Evie's sister. A flame war erupted. Someone hired an investigator to look at the Calcutta information to verify any part of the story, which they couldn't. Finally, someone contacted Dr. Marc Feldman, an expert in "Munchausen by Internet." He agreed it fit the profile.

This an excerpt from his site, Clues in Detecting Munchausen by Internet:

The posts consistently duplicate material in other posts, in books, or on health-related websites;

The characteristics of the supposed illness emerge as caricatures; near-fatal bouts of illness alternate with miraculous recoveries;

Claims are fantastic, contradicted by subsequent posts, or flatly disproved; there are continual dramatic events in the person's life, especially when other group members have become the focus of attention;

There is feigned blitheness about crises (e.g., going into septic shock) that will predictably attract immediate attention;

Others apparently posting on behalf of the individual (e.g., family members, friends) have identical patterns of writing.

It was so bizarre to watch this drama unfold. The power of this hoax tore the community apart, at once so substantial but so fragile. So many had lived through the real terminal illness and death of a beloved figure in the fan base. Dealing with "Evie's" death brought all those emotions back. This kind of sadistic deception shatters the myth that we have found a place where we can fully be ourselves, and our ability to put faith on the assumption that others are too.

Some Evie Whiting RPF, Written as a Memorial

Two days after Evie's "death," a fan wrote a RPF fic starring Evie and her husband, Adam called "A Chance Meeting":

Author's notes: This story is dedicated to the memory of Evie Whiting, a young woman who touched many, many lives, and whose own life was simply too short. This is also for the family that she left behind, who will always love and miss her.

xfc: NEW: A Chance Meeting (1/1) by TLynn, ^{Archived version}

2003 Comments by Fans

Well, I've got one from the X-Files fandom. It doesn't have much to do with gossip or someone pretending to be an "insider", but I think it's an interesting story about how a long-time regular at a forum can fool even her closest friends.

Over on the Idealists Haven messageboard, there was a long-time poster (and fanfic writer) named Evie Whiting, who was much beloved and a sweet, bubbly person. Last year, she suddenly became very ill, and was rushed to the hospital for some unidentified reason. For several weeks, she was able to post tons of messages from her "deathbed". She then fell into a coma and later died, and all the while through her coma/death, her husband (who was not a regular) continued to post to the Haven, where her friends were devastated and had been sending all kinds of sympathetic and grief-stricken messages of support. Things got very weird after her "death" mainly because he was continuing to post and wallow in all the attention, and when a few people gently began asking whether or not this was all true, suddenly someone who claimed to be Evie's sister popped up and started attacking people left and right.

The entire thing turned out to be a hoax. Another long-time and well-respected poster received a private email from the dead woman herself; Evie claimed that she had no idea any of this had gone on. In her defense, she spun a convoluted tale about someone using her computer without her knowledge -- for weeks! -- and that this person had done it to humiliate her. But when pressed for more info, she clammed up and never returned. Ultimately, no one really knows what happened: if Evie was ever even sick or not, or if she had EVER been who she pretended to be - for YEARS. It was so bizarre, and it gobsmacked the scores of people she had befriended during that time. And like you've done here, some people became VERY interested in ferreting out the truth (they never did), while others continued to defend her, and still others just wanted it all to go away.

Unfortunately, all the posts and evidence of this disappeared this winter when the messageboard was hacked (unrelated to the hoax), and they had to start up a new one. But I think if you ask any XF fan who's been to the Haven (the MB) about Evie Whiting, they'll remember the story. Things have died down, and Evie's never returned to any corner of the fandom as far as anyone knows, but everyone who was around then remembers the tale. I had never even heard of her before this all began (I'm not a regular at the Haven because I think the site is full of nutters), but I remember it all quite clearly. Her friends were VERY hurt, angered, confused and yet some still defended her.

Sounds a little familiar, yes?

2015 Comments by Fans

Years ago, in The X Files fandom, I (and a whole big bunch of us) were also played.

I never forgot beautiful Evie Whiting, her young twins, her loving husband who used to read fic to her when she became too weak to hold her head up. I emailed and chatted with Evie and "her husband" while they were in the hospital and she had taken a turn for the worse. All of Evie's beautiful, long, dark hair had to be cut off (for some inexplicable reason).

One Sunday morning, during mass with my children, my daughter said, "Mommy, why are you crying?" "Because a friend of mine is dying," I said.

Nope. Played. A cruel attempt at getting attention. I changed after that. I rarely believe anyone's story of woe on the internet, and I doubt most everyone in fandom. I obviously still participate in this fandom, but I lost something when my emotions were raped like that.

[...]

These people who kill imaginary children and die imaginary deaths have taken something very special away from us. And I don't forgive them.

2016 Comments by Fans

I just want to add that some of us who were Haven regulars got veeeery suspicious and looked for evidence of her death by checking online obits in Sydney, Australia, where she’d said she lived. Nothing. When I innocently asked her “husband” where her memorial was going to be held so I could send flowers, he spun this crazy tale that since Evie was half-Indian, her body was going to be shipped to India so her remains could be disposed of in the Ganges. This is when our bullshit meters went REALLY off because it was so ridiculously convoluted and most of us were sure at this point that her death was a total fake.(Also, Evie had shared every single detail of her personal life but had never said anything about Indian ancestry.)

Also, in hindsght, Evie had this really unbelivable personal history. She said she was 24 or something and was already a practicing doctor (fake doctors seem to be a running theme in our fandom) and had three children, including twins named Dana Katherine and Fox William. Yeah.

Good times!

Some of Evie's Fiction

"Here's Evie's newest fics!", ^{Archived version}

• The Shadow, ^{Archived version}

• High School Blues I, ^{Archived version}

• High School Blues II, ^{Archived version}

• Magnolia Scented Madeleines, ^{Archived version}

• Cathy's Lament, ^{Archived version}

• Pandora Revisited, ^{Archived version}

• Aeschylus' Wisdom, ^{Archived version}