Who is TamTamPamela?
Just in case you have been confused by recent buzz about TamTamPamela and the resulting YouTube flamewars, I thought I would summarize the events here. For the past year, a girl calling herself TamTamPamela has been posting videos to YouTube which echo some extremely fundamentalist Christian views. Several atheists had been adding harsh comments to her channel, but she seemed rather unfazed and continued to upload videos of the same format.
After the March 11th earthquake in Japan, TamTamPamela posted a video in which she rather charismatically thanked god for grabbing the atheist nation of Japan by the shoulders and giving them a good shake to show them the error of their heathen ways. Her glassy eyed joy at the Japanese tragedy sparked greater outrage than her previous videos, grabbing the attention of an atheist YouTube vlogger who goes by the moniker Thunderf00t.
Thunderf00t posted a video that contrasted science based reasoning with fundamentalist Christian unreasoning and compared TamTamPamela’s condemnation of Japan with that of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson’s rants about other natural disasters being directed upon the sinful by a vengeful god. Thunderf00t's subscriber base is in the six digits, and this led to TamTamPamela’s video going viral.
The comments began to stream down TamTamPamela’s page, hurling voracious threats of every kind. The search for the real TamTamPamela began and quickly yielded all of her personal contact information. Some people went as far as to credit the revelation of these details to Anonymous. Regardless of who first dug up her personal information, it rapidly spread and the threats against TamTamPamela began to include her home address and phone number. These actual details will NOT be revealed in this article because such inclusion would only increase the potential of violence against her.
By midnight on March 14th, several dozen pizzas had been ordered for delivery to TamTamPamela’s home address to ensure she would know that her address had been compromised - just in case she wasn’t keeping up with the rapidly scrolling comments on her YouTube channel. Shortly after midnight, in the wee morning hours of March 15th, TamTamPamela posted her final video, ‘coming clean’, which now only exists as a mirror. In it, she said that her fundamentalist Christian videos had been nothing more than a ruse. She admitted to being a troll, indicated she was tired of pizza, and acknowledged that things had gone a bit further than she had anticipated.
The streaming hatred shifted from her video condemning Japanese heathens to her ‘coming clean’ video. The death threats escalated, and within a few hours TamTamPamela terminated her YouTube account. Regardless of the credibility of her recantation, the anger over TamTamPamela now continues on message boards all over the internet.
There are those who hate her for her glassy eyed praise of god bringing death and destruction to the Japanese. There are those who hate her more for being a troll. There are Christians who hate her for satirizing their beliefs and, finally, there are atheists who hate her for the potential backlash her actions could create if it turns out she was motivated by some sort of misguided atheist agenda.
Whether she really was a troll or just made that claim in an attempt to cool the flames, TamTampamela is definitely the best illustration to date of Poe’s Law; "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."
Who is TamTamPamela? In my opinion she is what is known, in forum parlance, as a 'Poe'.
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Comment by Radu Andreiu on March 15, 2011 at 11:57am -
What about EdwardCurrent? Is he too obvious in his parody, or is his parody simply not that easy too hate, for most people?
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Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 15, 2011 at 12:13pm -
His parody is an obvious parody for most people and he picks light topics to satirize. There are, however, some serious fundies who totally agree with him and who just don't get the joke - and that makes it even funnier.
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Comment by Jason Daro on March 15, 2011 at 12:23pm -
Whatever you guys think you know about TamTam Pamela is completely wrong. How do I know this? Because I know her personally. I feel sorry for the poor lady in Florida Who's information was given out as that of Tam... especially since Tam happens to live on the other coast and funny enough is a student at a Christian College.
I wonder how things in school are going to go now. I have to say great job trying to get the info out there, but it's best to say i don't know if this is true vs. this is true, but I wont reveal it.
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Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 15, 2011 at 12:35pm
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It's interesting then that no Florida address was given out in the YouTube flamewar. It's interesting that the owner of the account acknowledged the pizza deliveries. It's interesting that the information given out indicates she is not a college student. I don't know who you are talking about, but obviously you weren't witness to the events. Thanks for trying though.
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Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 15, 2011 at 12:37pm
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It's even more interesting that you joined TA just 15 minutes ago just to try to propagate misinformation even though your personal information wasn't given out, Pamela. No one here is trying to do you harm.
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Comment by Albert Bakker on March 15, 2011 at 12:48pm -
Why would it be important to know who this person is? Are we now on a witch hunt or something? There are lots of crazies out there who don't need much encouragement. This is not likely to be a person who can hire bodyguards. This is not a person likely to receive any adequate protection.
Do you really want to be part of this?
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Comment by Jason Daro on March 15, 2011 at 12:51pm
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Its not really a witch hunt. It's actually the fact that she is not a troll. This is who she really is. I don't wish her any harm, but I don't think the wrong people should be harassed for her actions or that she should be given credit for being something more than she really is.
She really is that religious in real life.
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Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 15, 2011 at 12:55pm
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Well, as I posted, the messages were going by at 900/hr, so it IS possible that I missed a Florida address in there somewhere - but I assure you that the address that was posted over and over again, the address that the pizzas were sent to, was NOT a Florida address. Furthermore, I don't make my career out of blogging, I just happened to be a witness to the events as they unfolded.
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Comment by Jason Daro on March 15, 2011 at 12:56pm
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I'm sorry, let me clarify, she tries to come off as that religious in real life and is even a youth group organizer in her Church. She judges others for their beliefs, when inside she is no better than the rest of us. The only difference is, we don't pretend to be something we aren't.
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Comment by Jason Daro on March 15, 2011 at 12:58pm
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Like I said, I'm not trying to attack you either Heather. I just have a little more insight on this than most people because I am on the inside. I removed the post earlier because there was a link to her ex boyfriends myspace with a pic of them together and in all honesty she doesn't need more publicity and the poor guy doesn't need to be harassed for anyone he used to date.
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