I had referenced this in a previous “Things That Annoy Me” entry, albeit loosly (being I at the time could find nothing online about it). But it has since gone viral, so much more is out now. In fact the story of her morning being ruined by some mean ladies behind her in line has now been digitally published by all kinds of journalistic sources, big and small, world wide. But of course.
The first time I had come across this was on facebook, though an image shared with a short explanation. The image was of Dianne Hoffmeyer holding a Tim Hortons cup, with her story of allegedly being verbally accosted by 2 older women whom insulted her to the point of crying. Women, that she says she ended up purchasing coffee’s for.
“Because it was the right thing to do”.
I am going to be perfectly honest here and say that I did not read the story upon running into it on facebook. Seeing the image of her photographed with the branded product so clearly shown was one red flag. And the way the story was worded even from the beginning (guaranteed to tug on the heartstrings) was an even bigger red flag (the one that broke the camels back, it would seem). I just scrolled on past, annoyed AGAIN that people were so easily manipulated.
One of the big reasons this annoyed me was because it is basically a free advertisement for Tim Horton’s. A story that is guaranteed click bait to anyone that posts it, and as such a story that has really no downside for any involved. Well, besides the bandwidth and attention taken away from other things that could have been shown instead of the glorified Tims ad. But such is the world today.
What was more concerning, is the seemingly manufactured look of the whole thing.
I did a bit of digging, finding not all that much to work with. I did find a facebook page dedicated to apparently exposing this lady for the fraud she pulled off, but though it contains some interesting and seemingly embarrassing material, I decided not to share any of it here, out of a lack of knowledge of the agenda of the person (or person’s) of whom started the page.
I reached out to the administrators in a private message, asking what their relationship with Dianne Hoffmeyer was, and thus what their agenda was. I stated that though I would not mind helping expose another social media fraudster, I am not going to get involved if they just have an axe to grind with Hoffmeyer. Though someone read the message, there was no response as if publishing.
As such, I will not use any of the material it provided (or even link it) here. But no worries, its easy enough to find on facebook with its internal search feature should you be curious.
Long story short, though I (as of yet) can not guarantee this story is false, half true or true, I am leaning towards the first 2. Even without what little information that facebook group seemingly has, the whole thing is, questionable.
For one thing, such an incident would seem to be memorable for all involved (including the staff serving the person). Though I did not go in depth in terms of reading into many of the stories (or even into the incident itself), this angle seems like one that, would be an obvious one to cover. Interviewing the staff involved (if possible) to get their piece.
I would hope that one of the many hundreds of sources that have run with this story would have thought of this.
Either way, I am airing on the side of skepticism and am closing the book on this.
I will likely do an update if new information is revealed later from someone close to to the situation (staff, other guests in the coffee shop, even possible the bullies themselves). But for the time being, I will leave this as simply, plausible.
And even if this is a true story of a women responding in a very good way to bullying and fat shaming, I question why this was given so much coverage, EVERYWHERE. If anything at all, it illustrates a big part of what is wrong with journalism today.
When you compete with social media, you need to drop your standards.
A Raindrop In The Ocean 