Diana Meresc May Or May Not Be A Bot, But She Is Definitely A Plagiarist

Why does this con artist have 6.6 thousand Medium followers offering their “opinions and support”? I went down a rabbit hole so you don’t have to.

Medium writer Diana Meresc is not who/what you think she is. If you don’t know me — Hi! I’m Bonnie and my personal mission is to create healthy conversations about challenging topics. Before you read this piece, I want to assure you that I do not take it lightly to call out another person by name.

The thing is, it’s likely Diana is not a person at all. But if she is, she’s not the one she’s presenting herself as. While the internet is a wonderful place where you can technically be whoever you want, it is not a place where it’s okay to con others.

As a community for writers and readers, I hope Medium will look deeper into Diana’s fraudulent profile and I hope this conversation will help all of us learn about the importance of upholding healthy community standards.

A handful of (human) Medium writers have speculated that Diana might be a bot. Gustave Deresse seems to be the leader of this parade and I admire the rallying. I don’t know if this is just pandemic isolation or the recent loss of major human rights, but it was fun and enlightening to go down this rabbit hole.

This experience has sparked thought about a lot of things I had not really explored before. A new piece by Attila Vágó offers a fascinating discussion on whether it is actually problematic at all to have a bot in our midst! In Attila’s words: “If all bot writers do is write listicles, then I say, let them do so. It forces actual writers to come up with better stories.”

Is this a good time to address the fact that when it comes to Diana, she isn’t “coming up with” anything at all? I don’t know much about how bots create original work, but Diana’s work is not “original.” This user has been stealing material from all over the internet.

But I’m not asking you to trust me blindly; I have several pieces of visual proof showing that Diana has been stealing much, if not all, of her pieces.

Personally, I have always thought of myself as Medium’s resident activist-nanny, but I think I’m crossing into English Teacher status with this proof of Plagiarism…

Diana Meresc, please report to the principal’s office!

On Quora, Diana has a page where you can see that she has pasted entire articles, verbatim, from other existing websites.

Here is the same piece on Healthline.com credited to Kris Gunnars

To be clear, Diana’s work on Medium is also plagiarized, but not as brazenly.

Rather, she has repurposed her articles from tons of different sites. I don’t know if that is the work of a bot, an individual person, or a team of people. If anyone is versed in how this type of thing works, please hop in to share as I’m sure a lot of human readers will be curious! I know I am.

This repurposing immediately stood out to me as I had my first HuffPost writing credit this year (humble-brag) and I experienced this kind of plagiarism almost immediately.

My piece ended up being pasted into several sites. One random site listed my name, but obviously made money illegally using the piece, another listed an entirely different writer, and the most amusing one did the same thing Diana Meresc does all over Medium and potentially elsewhere; The whole essay concept was the same, but every sentence was awkwardly rewritten.

But “Diana” knows how to repurpose other people’s work carefully.

Again, I don’t know how this works- does a human person sit and do this, or is it being done by a machine? Is someone running a small company where they employ a bunch of writers to create generic “inspirational” listicles?

Based on Diana’s 6.6K followers and the amount of engagement her pieces receive, it’s possible and likely that she’s making thousands of dollars each month for what looks like just a few hours a week.

Here is an excerpt of one of Diana’s pieces that she published on Medium:

5 Reasons Why Smart People Are Unhappy

1. Are inclined to over-analysis

A high number of intelligent people analyse every single thing that happens to them. This process will lead to burnout because they will waste energy thinking about every potential aspect. If they come to conclusions that bother or upset them they will have a negative emotional state and find it very difficult to enjoy the present moment. Even if you have a great ability to replay every detail of the day, there is no need to pay attention to absolutely everything. Difficult situations or moments when you have conflicting reactions or are unsure of what to do will certainly arise. Learn to ignore some things so you can have a peaceful life.

Here is another piece that came up online when I searched the title. This one, by David Wolfe is 5 Reasons Why Intelligent People Fail At Happiness

…Oh, I’m sure the parallel title is just a coincidence! But just for funzies, let’s look at how Diana’s piece manages to cover the same points sentence by sentence.

2. Intelligent People Over-Analyze

Many intelligent people are over-thinkers who constantly analyze everything in their life. Trying to read between the lines or find a deeper meaning to every situation can be physically, mentally and emotionally draining. Those with high IQ’s try to read those around them and find a solution to every problem, even when there might not be one. When they can’t find an answer, they’re left extremely frustrated and upset.

I found that Diana follows a pattern of tweaking a title and using the same points as the article she is stealing from, but she takes the list items out of order and switches the words enough to avoid being caught by a plagiarism tracking program. Crafty.

Again, I am a bit out of my element in understanding precisely how her work has come about, but I wanted to share a bit from the exploration started by Gustave. He went pretty deep and offered a few reasons why Diana seems to be a bot.

One key element is Diana’s commenting habits. Here’s a screenshot below. If you enter “opinion and support” into the Medium search bar, you’ll see that this goes on for pages and pages.

Now, this is not a crime in and of itself. Most writers probably appreciated being acknowledged so kindly; at least, they probably appreciated it when they were sure it was coming from a human!

And hey, if you find a phrase that works, you’re allowed to use it over and over and over forever, until the end of time.

But if you’re looking closely, you can see that sometimes Diana makes a mistake and says thank you to someone by their last name instead of their first. Hey- It’s not illegal. It’s…. industrious; a busy writer knows it’s valuable to stay connected here.

Sure, this made her suspicious, but I think she shut down a lot of doubters when she “proved” herself by responding with this statement that stepped outside her typical template-based appreciation.

I’m sure that was enough for a lot of people. After all, there is no crime in being a kind person who takes a moment to respond to all of your readers. Many of us do that. Making it go by quicker by just saying “Thanks for your opinion and support” even when that’s not a relevant response is not a crime. It’s not disallowed.

I mean sure, it’s a little weird. But it’s not proof. It’s also not earth-shattering to see a writer accidentally thank someone and address them by their last name. It happens.

Strangely enough, I work a side gig for a company where we leave personalized responses for companies to help them avoid generic responses like these. That’s part of why these stand out to me. I’d get fired for leaving comments like these. Instead I’m called on to put out a few sentences:

“Hi Diana, Thanks for sharing this fascinating essay. Your point of view is really unique and I can see why so many Medium members find you inspiring. I look forward to reading more of your work soon!”

Honestly, I think part of why I followed this narrative through so many rabbit holes (I found so much I couldn’t even include all of it here…) is because I sort of wanted to debunk the accusation. How cool would it have been to prove that Diana Meresc was not a con artist at all?

I imagined doing a Zoom interview with her and everything, cause I am that kind of weirdo.

But I think Judy Derby’s recent piece should really give us all some perspective. She spoke about how there are TWO very valuable community members on Medium who go above and beyond when supporting others.

One of them is Diana Meresc, and the other unsurprisingly is David Perlmutter.

Why is this significant? Because David is not a bot. How do I know this? He actually interacts with pieces. It’s true, he is a prolific highlighter. Honestly, I think if David turned out to be a bot, people would be a bit scared in a black-mirror, science-fiction sort of way because a lot of us have meaningful interactions with David regularly.

But no one who pays attention to David suspects that he is a bot. When you are lucky enough for David to comment on your work, you’ll notice that he doesn’t say generic things- he offers actual thoughts. Those who receive engagement from him should feel really lucky, especially considering we all get paid by the time folks spend reading here.

But Deb Groves Harman made a very interesting revelation (screenshot below) that makes me wonder if all the devoted Medium friends of Diana Meresc are getting the reciprocation they think they’re receiving from her. In fact, many who claimed that she highlighted their pieces suggested that the areas she chooses to highlight feel arbitrary.

I’m concerned too, Deb! I think we should all be concerned for many reasons.

I’ve lost track of who said this, but among all of the discussions I read, someone was speaking about why it is harmful to have a fake profile like this. Among other things, the time folks spend reading Diana Meresc’s work puts money in the wallet of a scammer — and if she were not here, it is likely they would spend that time reading actual pieces by actual human beings with unique thoughts that they didn’t steal.

And that makes me sad. Granted, I don’t know if any of Diana’s true fans will want to read my work. I really marveled at how beloved this plagiarist has become here. If you scroll the comments on her pieces you’ll often see dozens of people praising her as if she just ended the pandemic.

Personally, bot or not, I don’t get it. But the truth is, I’m gonna study it. Diana offered us something people responded to. Honestly, I feel like I’m experiencing the real-life version of the end of Mrs. Doubtfire.

I feel like we’ve seen the last of Diana, but what can we learn? What can we emulate?

Update: I know I have seen the last of her as she blocked me after I wrote this!

In true Diana Meresc style, 10 Things We Should Learn From Diana Meresc in 2022.

One more thing… I’d disclaim that it’s silly, but I think we are past that. Did you ever try scrambling the letters of the name Diana Meresc??? Probably not. Who would do that? That would be so weird.

….Rearranged, the same letters spell E-Readin Scam. Please let me know if you can find a different cryptic message in the letters.