Álvaro Serrano, writing about the recent information on Samantha Bielefeld:
Those of you who have been following the Samantha Bielefeld saga may already know that a few days ago, new information was made public that caused many people, myself included, to question our role in this whole thing.
It appears — at this point I consider it proven — that Samantha Bielefeld’s real identity is actually a man named Victor Wynn Johnson. Not only that, but this man has been accused of being a pathological liar and a conman in the past, long before Samantha ever entered the picture.
For obvious reasons, that has some very important implications.
This whole situation has been incredibly difficult to follow if you haven’t been vigilant about reading all of the various threads on Twitter throughout the past week. But Álvaro does a great job at compiling all of the relevant information and presenting it in a digestible fashion.
I could have written much more about this and I certainly have plenty of thoughts on the topic to justify doing so. But I would rather leave that to Álvaro and others. The last thing I want to do is say something that I’ll later regret and I’m afraid if I elaborate too much I’m at risk of doing so.
Regardless of what Victor has done in the past, my interactions with Samantha, the character, were always pleasant. And although I prefer to base my opinions on my own experiences, it’s clear to me that it’s time to distance myself and move on. I just hope I’m doing so in a way that is respectful to everyone who was impacted by this person’s actions.
Perhaps I was too optimistic or blinded by the encouraging words and support I received from her, I simply wish I would have known the truth sooner. I hope that my vocal support of her writing and the guest post I wrote for her site hasn’t eroded the trust I’ve built up with my readers thoughout the years I’ve publishing online. But as much as I possibly can, I will continue expressing a feeling of optimism for new writers and members to our community. It wouldn’t be fair for me to treat them differently because of this ordeal.
And if there’s one silver lining in all of this it’s that the genuine friendships I’ve built over this past several months have only grown stronger through all of it. As someone who’s lived through tragedies in the past, I can tell you that the ones who stick with you through the hard times are the ones who will remain by your side for the long haul.
As for the the writing I’ve published with references to Samantha, I will soon be editing these pieces in order to better reflect my current feelings about the situation. I haven’t dug through Initial Charge’s archives to see exactly how much editing that will entail, but I expect that I’ll simply add a link to this piece for context.
