History of an early example of Munchausen by Internet.
The Curious Case of Kacyee Nicole — Switchboard Magazine
In 1999, the early internet felt like a digital frontier—and few stories capture its innocence and deceit like the saga of Kaycee Nicole. Written in cinematic detail, this longform feature traces how a Kansas teenager’s blog about battling leukemia captivated an online community before unraveling into one of the first major internet hoaxes. Through the intertwined journeys of early web pioneers—John Halcyon Styn, Saundra Mitchell, and MetaFilter founder Matt Haughey—the story revisits the dawn of online intimacy, the birth of blogging, and the emotional fallout of a lie that defined the internet’s coming-of-age.
switchboardmagazine.com