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I liked Jenny.  She had this feel of a smart, creative person who just got fed up with her job and decided to take a white board and a camera to create a clever "take this job and shove it" email to be sent off to all of her co-workers.  (It’s much better than the JetBlue flight attendant who went crazy and slid down an emergency exit slide to escape passengers and their big bags.)  If you didn’t see it, in a series of pictures, Jenny went through the story of trying to make it in the broker world, but she had a male chauvinist boss in the way.  And to expose him for who he truly was she used the same big brother, employee spying computer software to expose the bosses out of control Farmville habit.  It was a modern day, Dolly Parton, 9 to 5 movie without the rat poisoning.  Jenny’s story was compelling enough to be a feature film.

A few days later, it became clear why the story felt like a movie.  Jenny’s quitting email was a hoax performed by a Hollywood actress. 

As quickly as the initial Jenny photos made the viral rounds, so did the news of the hoax.  And my mind went to one place.  Lying and hoaxes never have a lasting effect.  People don’t like felling duped or betrayed.

While the website TheChive (which I don’t recommend overall because of questionable content) got a few days of spiked traffic, I think they may have lost any longer lasting benefits.  Sure, there are probably people who never heard of the site, have seen it now, and will eventually go back.  That may have some value, but my guess is the majority of people who went to see Jenny’s story aren’t going back.

I think as creative people, we’d all like to have something go viral or get lots of attention.  I think Jenny’s creativity was part of the appeal before I knew it was a hoax.  As we’re telling stories and creating content, let’s focus on telling good, truthful stories.  They go viral, too.  (Remember the autistic high school basketball assistant who was put into the game and started dropping 3-pointers all over the place?)   But instead of feeling let down, real stories give people something or someone to stand with.  I wanted to be on Jenny’s team.  I knew her actions were a little hot headed, but her creativity would land her another job somewhere.   But instead I was left with nothing.

Sure, all of this Jenny support is way over-exaggerated on my part, but I want to use this silly, online hoax to make a much bigger point.  Tell stories that engage people to take action and give them something real to take a stand with.