Cricket fans are outraged after Kiwi comedian Melanie Bracewell admitted faking an erotica message she claimed had been sent to her by a member of an online cricket group.
Bracewell shared a screenshot of the "NSFW" [not safe for work] message, which she said had come from someone in the Reddit cricketing community, off her Twitter account.
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"Oh my God I commented on the cricket subreddit and got this private message," she said.
The message contained explicit sexual details about what the person wanted to do to her and caused disgust amongst her followers, with one person describing it as "extremely gross and sexist".
However, a user on the Cricket group then posted they'd found a recent post on the 'dirtypenpals' subreddit by a user called 'melthrowaway2019' titled "this game of cricket is so good that I'm horny".
The poster was seeking someone into "beating India in an incredible upset" and solicited dirty messages.
A Reddit moderator then contacted Bracewell asking her for details of who sent her the private message, and she admitted it was a joke and apologised.
"I'm a comedian and I was commentating on the ACC (alternative commentary collective) at the time," she wrote to the cricket subreddit.
"Thought it would be funny to post something to prompt some more erotic fanfiction on the show (very on theme for the commentary).
"Honestly didn't even think about the culture of the cricket subreddit or bringing the community into disrepute. Genuinely was just a laugh."
Despite this she's being blasted for making up a sexual harassment allegation and stereotyping Indians with intentionally bad English.
"Lying about sexual harassment isn't a joke," one person wrote.
"This is disgusting. Towards this subreddit. Towards victims of actual sexual harassment. Towards Indian men, who often get targeted with bobs and vegana remarks from random people," another said.
Bracewell has since deleted her social media.
She has declined to comment to media, however, told Stuff she hadn't written the story herself.
Newshub.
