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It started as a bit of a joke for me really. Back when I first joined, Robert @TheAlvarezChronicles sent me a message saying something like "You and I just got followed by one of those guys who just click and follow till they reach the limit of 1,000 and then drop you and start again." I guess as my first follower he'd taken it upon himself to show me the Wattpad ropes?

Being relatively new and having only a few followers then, I'd noticed the new guy immediately and sure enough, the next day he'd disappeared. I didn't think anything of it at the time other than some random dude who had nothing better to do than lamely follow people in the hope some of them follow him back in turn?

Then a few days ago, I noticed Robert sent a message to all followers warning about yet another guy doing the same thing! Of course by now I had substantially more followers and didn't pick up whether I had fallen victim to this particular one. It wasn't until the next day when Robert published another two names that I noticed a new follower who then un-followed me the next day. Huh.

I made a couple of public comments on Robert's profile, as did he. I questioned in particular whether this ought to be something that Wattpad should address now, before it gets out of control and brings the whole site crashing down? Something was bugging me still however, and me being me, I couldn't sleep. There was a pattern, maybe the two new names? Maybe who was commenting on their profiles?

Around 11.00pm (my time, AEST) last night, I checked Wattpad and found all my followers had disappeared. I recalled this happening once before and just like last time, the issue - whatever it had been - was resolved after a few hours:

Sep 4, 06:07EDT

Investigating - Hey Wattpadders! Looks like we might have an issue. Hang tight while we work it out.

Sep 4, 05:10EDT

Identified - Hey Wattpadders! We are having issues with follower/following functionality. For the time being, you are not able to follow new profiles, and follower/following counts on Web will appear as zero. We are working hard to get this working again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

That was when I decided to 'follow up' on those three names Robert had named and shamed. Two out of the three now showed zero followers! I felt some satisfaction, appreciating the fact that Wattpad had caught on to these stupid people and dealt with them appropriately?

Something was still niggling at me however. The profile which had not been emptied of followers - I decided to check it more closely? That's when it all fell into place.

...So I have been sitting here for hours as one profile leads me to another profile, all doing the same thing, all following vast numbers of people in short periods of time... most running at about 20 or so per few minutes? This clicking has gone on for hours on all these profiles, and those targeted have been mostly new Wattpadders, with less than 100 followers for the most part and many with just a handful or none at all.

At about 11.00pm (my time, AEST) Wattpad also suffered a "major followers/following outage"...

By this time, I had about twenty profiles copied and pasted on a word doc, showing clear connections between each other and also exhibiting the same seemingly random clicking fashion...

I am no detective, but I am canny enough to spot a pattern. All the profiles were of the same nationality, and all were 'reading' and 'voting' amongst each other; adding comments, and generally pushing each other's work, as well as doing the click follow/un-follow pattern, amassing fan bases... and oddly some of them had not even published anything?

At around 50 or so of these, I stopped. Apart from the tiredness and headache caused by lack of sleep, I was mentally drained. Also feeling pretty blah about Wattpad? By my rough calculations, these 50 odd profiles alone were gathering hundreds of thousands to potentially millions of followers between them thus far? I sat back, looking at the 'bigger picture'...

Why? Why a particular group and why now and what was the purpose? Artificially inflating numbers; creating a false reality; taking away potential readers and followers from others who trod the much harder yet moral and ethical path... And was it only now, or has this been very much a part of Wattpad and only happened to surface at this time? I still cannot make sense of it, and perhaps someone out there reading this might illuminate us all further?

I did try to translate via Google some of the comments and profile information but it was a case of 'lost in translation' for the most part and since I don't speak a word of this language, I soon gave up that idea.

Of course my thoughts then drifted to Wattpad itself. If a middle-aged mum sitting in front of a computer in a faraway place had picked this up... what were the team at Wattpad doing? Now - I had discussed this with Dylan a couple of days ago? He suggested that it could be quite simple for anyone canny, to run some code and set it to pick up a new follower say – every minute? That was when we only knew of the three Robert had exposed of course... so it seemed feasible that perhaps three nerdy dudes like my son decided they might play the numbers game for a laugh?

And Dylan did offer up the fact that whilst it was morally and ethically wrong, it might not be exactly illegal? So these people could actually well be within the guidelines of Wattpad in which case, there would be little Wattpad could do under these current guidelines?

Scrolling through dozens of similar profiles however... I began to feel uneasy. I saw all the young ones pleading for their work to be read and thanking these 'nice people' for the follow - not suspecting they would be dropped the next day to make room for more? Hell, there was not a word of English on these profiles... I could not make sense of how they were being followed back, when the youngsters and newcomers could not possibly understand the odd 'piece of work' that had been published by them? I saw this question pop up often with the thank you: "Do you speak English?"

You are notified if you are followed by someone new of course, but like the missing 'dislike' button on Facebook, you receive no notification if someone un-follows you? I guess feelings could get hurt or arguments could break out as the one un-followed seeks to discover why? Who knows...

There are big issues at play here however. This is no longer an individual or even a small group; this is potentially hundreds if not thousands of people rorting a system to their advantage? Which then of course leads to: Who is genuinely doing the hard slog, and who is amassing 1,000 followers per day (!) by simply landing on the Wattpad Profile and picking up all the newbies... since that's where most start their Wattpad journey?

Now... I have to check every new follower for 'suspicious activity'. Now Wattpad itself is tainted for me as is everyone within it, since new people I follow will check me out as well? So more a guilty until proven innocent approach... With such a large number playing this hyper-inflation game, we will all eventually get swept up in the ever-increasing net and - some may suffer, some may be discouraged, some may give up entirely... in the face of either rorting the system themselves or accepting the fact they will never be able to compete in a level playing field. Ever.

What does this mean for me personally? Truthfully not much, you all know how I feel, why I am here and that I hold no expectations or aspirations or dreams of one day reaching those dizzying heights. I am content to write what I like, to have a small yet active group around me and when time permits, to visit these kind neighbours and spend a little time lost in their work. My little corner of Wattpad is growing slowly and I kinda like that. It allows me time to interact and get to know my readers and in turn allows them greater access to me.

But that's me. Others have dreams and aspirations, others want to be genuinely noticed and lauded and perhaps one day be published? So what does this then mean for these folks? The dizzying heights suddenly become a sham, an illusion, a 'numbers by clicking' game? Those profiles with a massive fan-base... now they are all under question: are their numbers real or did they too at some point play the game?

I will name and shame. Maybe because I am a mum and most Wattpadders are youngsters... maybe because I want some dignity to remain, some genuine hope? Or maybe because I wasted these hours - precious sleeping hours I cannot get back - chasing down these noxious profiles.

Talking to you directly now, those listed below, those still in my doc file and the unknown and perhaps never to be known number of you I have yet to come across: STOP. Go bloody write something; go learn the craft; go put in the time and the effort like the rest of us? Else... piss off as we Aussies like to say. You are scum; preying on young minds and on REAL hopes and dreams. You are despicable; you have no morals and no sense of decency. And you're just plain dumb? What? You thought you could merrily click your way to 100k followers in a couple of months and no one would notice? Like for real?

You are collectively stupid. Go away - go play bingo or lotto or some other numbers game. Leave Wattpad to the writers and the readers and to a genuine community, free of your stupidity and whatever else drives you to act with such blatant disrespect for others.

#Stupid 2: Following and unfollowing the same person over and over - I lost count after 100 times on several occassions

#Stupid 3: Not spreading the love around - you know what I'm talking about... quite a CLUB you have going - and my how it's growing - how about you let some others in?

#Stupid 4: Joining Wattpad to be mere clicks and numbers in someone else's profile... sigh...

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