Kaycee Nicole
| Kaycee Nicole | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | 1999 |
| Last appearance | 2001 |
| Created by | Kelli Jo Swenson |
| Portrayed by | Debbie Swenson |
| Information | |
| Aliases | Kaycee Nicole Swenson |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Student |
| Nationality | American |
Kaycee Nicole, aka Kaycee Nicole Swenson, was a fictitious persona played by an American woman named Debbie Swenson (born Deborah Marie Dickman 1960), in an early case of Münchausen by Internet. Between 1999 and when the hoax was discovered in 2001, Swenson, playing the role of Kaycee, represented herself on numerous websites as a teenager suffering from terminal leukemia. Kaycee was reported to have died on May 14, 2001, and her death was publicized on May 16; shortly thereafter, members of the online communities that had supported her unraveled the story and discovered that Kaycee had never actually existed. Debbie Swenson confessed on her blog to the hoax on May 20, 2001.
In 1998, Debbie Swenson's real daughter, Kelli Burke (born Kelli Jo Swenson in 1985), who was in middle school at the time in Gracemont, Oklahoma, created the online persona of "Kaycee Nicole" with a group of her friends. The group created a webpage for the nonexistent girl and used photos of a high school basketball player from their town to represent her, but do not seem to have played the role of Kaycee beyond that or given her an active persona. That came when Debbie Swenson discovered what the girls had done and, rather than forcibly discontinue the hoax, she adopted the persona and began playing the role of Kaycee. In August 1999, the Swenson family moved from Oklahoma to Kansas.
After it came into Debbie Swenson's possession, the Kaycee Nicole persona appeared on CollegeClub.com in 1999, as a "sunny blonde" teenaged basketball star in Kansas who shared thoughts and photos with others on the website. She made friends easily with both users and staff at the site, even volunteering to help with administrative work and sending gifts to CollegeClub employees. "Kaycee" was interviewed by telephone by The New York Times in 2000, under the name "Kaycee Swenson". She described herself in the resultant article as a high school senior who was taking college courses and planned to start college full-time the next year.
In 2000, Kaycee revealed to an online friend of hers, Randall van der Woning, that she suffered from leukemia, which was then in remission. Shortly afterward, she told him that the cancer was back. Sympathetic, Van der Woning offered to set up and host a blog for her to chronicle her struggles; Kaycee accepted the offer and the two created "Living Colours" in August 2000.
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