Two years ago today, I came clean with you, my readers:
After some soul-searching, this story has made me decide to finally come clean with you all. I’m not really John Cole, I’m Jane Coale, a 72 year old pensioner and grandmum from Newcastle staying with my daughter and her American husband. Tunch is actually the neighbors pot-bellied pig, and Lily is my granddaughter. My daughter told me to write about the Steelers to make this blog seem realistic, my loyalties actually lie in this order: God, the Queen, and the Newcastle United.
You’ve all been real sports for playing along.
Looks like I was not the only one:
Six days after a post on the blog A Gay Girl in Damascus triggered panic among its readers by suggesting that the blog’s author, who claimed to be a Syrian-American lesbian caught up in the protest movement, had been detained in the Syrian capital, a new entry appeared on Sunday that described the entire online diary as a work of fiction by an American man.
The new post, headlined “Apology to Readers,” was signed by Tom MacMaster, a 40-year-old graduate student, who identified himself as “The sole author of all posts on this blog.” That would include four months of what appeared to be diary entries from Amina Abdallah Arraf, a self-described 35-year-old lesbian born and raised in the United States but now living in Damascus, and two posts attributed to Rania O. Ismail, a cousin of Ms. Arraf’s, who relayed news of her arrest to the blog’s readers last week.
What a jackass.
Punchy and JSF- keep this in mind the next time you are cybering with a “20 something model” in Second Life.
cleek
the most unshocking part
Villago Delenda Est
The man did make a connection to people through his Syrian girl sockpuppet, though.
Too bad it was every bit as real as the lightsaber battle between Yoda and Count Dooku.
Steve
The “apology” wasn’t even the slightest bit apologetic. A day later, the dude made another apology post that came across as more heartfelt, so I guess he realized his initial effort was pretty lame. What an idiot.
Culture of Truth
I suppose Rosie is a goth teen you took in
cathyx
Ok, I’ll confess too. I’m not really a 29 year old philanthropist beauty queen, who is dating George Clooney.
Paul W.
We still have second life? Not even NPR’s Science Friday is doing that shit anymore.
Sarah Proud and Tall
My name is Sarah Proud and Tall, and I am John Cole.
And possibly also Spartacus.
Jewish Steel
I guess here is as good a place as any to let you all know that I am not a Midwestern dude with a receding hairline approaching middle age but a jet-setting supermodel in an uptown loft in Manhattan.
It’s been killing me, but I didn’t know how to break it to you.
schrodinger's cat
@cathyx: I guess it is time for me to confess as well. I am not really a cat who may be dead or alive.
Villago Delenda Est
My confession. I am a dog.
Who sends photographs of his wiener to random beeyotches on the intertubes.
grillo
Boba Fett’s like totally alive, you know.
Jewish Steel
@Jewish Steel:
Now your’re just lying to yourself, dude. Sad.
Maude
What a mean trick to play on her/his readers.
@Jewish Steel:
I’m Captain Friday.
danimal
And I’m not really a cranky, cynical, self-important middle-aged blog commenter.
Well, ok, maybe I am.
kdaug
I don’t actually exist. I’m a bit of code trying to pass the Turing test.
(A rather large bit of code, if I may say, but still.)
Regret having you guys anthropomorphise me, but it’s for the greater good.
JonF
I’m actually Andrew Sullivan…..it feels so good to come clean about that.
Dennis SGMM
As long as we’re all coming clean; I’m not really an old guy living in a small town in the San Gabriel foothills. I am Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht. Now be vewy, vewy quiet…
R-Jud
@Jewish Steel: Beats talking to yourself.
Chinn Romney
50 is the new 40, right? So I’m not – wait – I’m still middle aged. Crap.
C.J.
@JonF:
I’m Sullivan!
Citizen_X
Oh, sure. Next, you’ll tell us that Sarah Proud and Tall is not actually a 93 year old filthy rich widow.
srv
We all used to be DougJ until he went and became respectable.
What’s wrong with trolling a whole country? Is it because we normally leave this to big media or nations? Heck, wars have been started for less than this.
Southern Beale
Well I’m glad I didn’t join the Twitterati who were outraged over this lesbian Syrian bloggers’ disappearance.
What a jackass, indeed.
Culture of Truth
I’m Spartacus!
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Citizen_X:
What on earth could you be implying?
JD Rhoades
Dude blogs like a lady.
anonymous
I really am a 20 year old model, and I am tired of all you others pretending to be. I can’t get any online dates.
TaMara (BHF)
Well as long as we’re confessing. I’m really Halle Berry and I don’t live in Colorado, I live in Malibu. Other than that, everything I’ve ever told you is true.
spartacus
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
I am spartacus.
Really.
gene108
@grillo:
Wasn’t there a book written about how Bobba Fett climbed out the Sarlac’s maw?
I do believe he is very much alive, at a certain point in time, post RotJ.
P.S. Gene is not my real name.
jeffreyw
I guess this is the day for it. I’m not really a crusty old white haired midwesterner. I’m just a lily.
burnspbesq
Everything I have ever posted on this blog is a lie. Including this comment.
chopper
dammit, i was waiting for her to get out of jail so i could tweet a picture of my dick to her.
now my week is ruined.
Citizen_X
@Sarah Proud and Tall: Nothing! I trust you completely. Hail the Old Ones!
chopper
@JD Rhoades:
win.
The Dangerman
@Villago Delenda Est:
My confession, too. I’m Alex Rodriguez.
Come, on Cameron, we’re outta here.
FTFY.
Jay in Oregon
@gene108:
It was a short story called “A Barve Like That” and it was written by one of my favorite sci-fi authors.
Of course, some of the flashbacks in that story are contradicted by the Star Wars prequels, but what can you do?
@Citizen_X:
I believe you mean “Hail the Great Old Ones!”
CaptainFwiffo
And I thought I was jaded after lonelygirl15!
Strandedvandal
I am Fabian Cancellara.
(lame cyclist joke)
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
But, if everything you post is a lie, and then you say you’re telling a lie, then you’re telling the truth, but everything you say is a lie…
Illogical! Illogical! Please explain! Only humans can explain their behavior! Illogical!
Paul McCartney
I AM THE WALRUS, GOO GOO GJOOB.
Fred
Still not a peep out of John Galt Cole about his dream candidate Johnson debating an Obama impersonator.
Freddie deBoer
The truth is, “Freddie deBoer” is an experimental performance art/improv comedy troupe operating out of Rapid City, SD.
WereBear
I am James Tiptree Jr!
Villago Delenda Est
@Jay in Oregon:
Star Wars “canon” is a convoluted mess, and we have George “I need even more money!” Lucas to thank for it.
I think his greatest possible error was having Princess Leia describe her “real mother” to Luke in Ep VI, then killing Padme off right after the two exited the birth canal in Ep III.
There are of course tons of other inconsistencies along the way.
Still, it was a great moment in Ep IV when Alec Guinness hesitates slightly before responding to Luke’s question, “How did my father die?”. As if he was recalling the cover story that he and Yoda had agreed upon years earlier.
scav
Strictly random atoms hitting an unattended keyboard here. No surprise either, huh?
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
This is a corollary to Yevgraf’s Rule:
There are no 14 year old girls on the internet who are willing to meet middle-aged men for sex. All of those willing 14 year olds are actually 57 year old vice detectives named Frank who are overweight, balding, and smoke Camel heavies. Frank also has high blood pressure, a hiatal hernia, a serious drinking habit, an outstanding balance of 3 grand with his bookie and a nasty bitch of a third wife named Stella that he’s currently divorcing.
Think about THAT when you’re rubbing one out…
Poopyman
OK, I confess. I’m actually a neutered cat with anger issues. (Yeah, there may be a correlation there.)
OT and probably a repeat of somewhere else, but Fenway eats. Baby steps, people.
Jay in Oregon
@Villago Delenda Est:
Try reading this article about the Holocron, a Star Wars continuity-tracking database, without your head exploding:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_canon#The_Holocron
It’s the Rosetta Stone for obsessive-compulsive geekery…
themann1086
@Villago Delenda Est: “This… sentence… is… false!”
“Uh… true. I’ll go “true”. Huh, that was easy. I’ll be honest, I might have heard that one before, though; sort of cheating.”
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
I agree, you are Spartacus, I am not. Please don’t crucify me Mr Emperor.
Brachiator
I yam what I yam… Wait a minute. I’m really Popeye the Sailor Man.
Alex S.
The guy shouldn’t have apologized. He should have just stopped writing and opened up a new blog. Or did he hope that he might be able to keep some of the readers he got as a Syrian woman?
I’m David Lynch.
alwhite
@JonF:
Why would that feel good? As crappy as my life is having to be L’il Andy would make me feel worse.
kdaug
@Villago Delenda Est:
Shit, dude.
I’ve got a Bioware TOR interview in about 5 hours whereafter I will likely be immersed in SW “canon” for the next couple years.
I’d appreciate it if we can hold off until then.
Let’s talk about Smurfs or something. Anything but Star Wars.
narayank
And I’m commander Shepard. And this may be my favorite…
Culture of Truth
@Villago Delenda Est:
What MacMaster wrote was true, from a certain point of view…
amk
I am the real john cole, you assholes.
alwhite
Truth be told, I am a young lesbian living in Syria. Give me your email address and I’ll send you a link to my web cam.
Jay in Oregon
@alwhite:
I’ll bite; does it look something like this?
asiangrrlMN
Well, if we’re all confessing, then I might as well unburden myself, too. I’m Michelle Malkin. I started visiting as a way to scope out the competition, but you guys sucked me in with your snark and animal pics.
I feel so…dirty.
Josie
@Sarah Proud and Tall: Pleeeze say it ain’t so. I was beginning to look upon you as a role model.
Judas Escargot
I’m actually a disembodied brain, floating in a small bubbly tank on a military base somewhere.
(Don’t know which one, they won’t hook me up to the GPS receiver. Bastards.)
This may explain my inherent crankiness.
Albert Mond
I am not a nuclear physicist, only a part time once in the while actor, which really means street performer. I have also moved furniture for a few bucks. Actual name is Cole Johns … apologies for misleading anyone but … Sarah Palin made me do it …
Victor
Just some monkeys on a keyboard here. We finally got lucky.
Yutsano
I’m a mushroom. A crimini if you want to get specific. Viva Italia!
erlking
I’m a hyperintelligent shade of the color blue.
Except, you know, not all THAT smart.
Caramuru
Tom MacMaster was most likely a starving writer with a deep knowledge of the plight of the Syrian gay and lesbian community. After his articles were rejected by many magazine editors on the grounds that he lacked perspective to write about this subject, he was convinced by his best friend and roommate, a lesbian Syrian-American, to submit new articles under her name for added credibility. The new articles caught the attention of a bisexual activist with whom Tom had a bickering relationship in real life. They developed an email relationship which eventually led Tom’s lesbian roommate to impersonate him in order to keep the pretense. As Tom’s articles begin to draw attention, and as his feelings for the bisexual activist begin to get more intense, Tom had a crisis of conscience and wondered if he should come clean. However, before he had a chance to explain everything, his romantic interest found her own email correspondence on his laptops, misunderstood everything and felt offended, thinking the two roommates were playing with her feelings. Tom was devastated but realized that somehow this experience made him a better man and he should start acting like one. After reading his apology online, the activist surprised him at a place that has emotional significance to both. They made up and lived happily ever after. Tom’s roommate ended up with the activist’s funny, less attractive best friend.
Bill Murray
@Freddie deBoer: well you would have to operate out of Rapid City, as you wouldn’t make any money operating in RC.
and I’m just a bill, but I’m not sitting here on capitol hill
Svensker
@Judas Escargot:
Miss Immelmehay, izzat you?
You guys are all making me laugh. Cept Fred, who’s piehole is spewing very boring pie.
daveNYC
@kdaug: Good luck with that. Punch someone in the junk for what they ended up doing with the main plot in ME2.
Suffern ACE
I am John Cole’s ex-wife. I figure that by clicking here and encouraging people to buy Tunch items, he will be finally able make alimony payments to me and the four hungry children he saddled me with.
scav
@Yutsano: erp. jefferyw know your coordinates?
Warren Terra
All of this snark is fine, but remember that he wasn’t just fooling a faceless mass of gullible readers, but was betraying at least one person far more personally: this 40-year-old married man apparently was in a sustained one-on-one relationship with a young Canadian lesbian woman who thought she was the blogger’s girlfriend.
Yutsano
@scav: Possibly. But I’m pretty good at being elusive.
kdaug
@daveNYC: That was Montreal, not Austin, but if I can track down the responsible parties I will relay your displeasure.
dandy
Rule 30. There are no girls on the internet.
Calouste
@asiangrrlMN:
Nah, no way Michelle Malkin would understand snark.
mafisto
@daveNYC:
Wait, what was wrong with ME2?
am
I just want to throw it out there and say Sullivan fell for this hook, line, and sinker. Wasn’t anybody skeptical about the backstory the first time they read the blog?
Warren Terra
@am:
I first heard of the blog when the news (New York Times webpage, above the fold, if I recall) reported she had been arrested. I was fairly ekeptical she could exist – but when your first report is that she’s been arrested it does seem harder to doubt.
am
@Warr@Warren Terra:
Fair enough, but I heard about ‘her’ before that and lost interest by the time of the ‘arrest’. I believe it was when McMasters made up the story of her being harassed in her home by security forces and her dad browbeating them into leaving. And I got that link from Sully…
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
Let me explain something to you. I am not Mr. Lebowski. You’re Mr. Lebowski. I’m the Dude. So, that’s what you call me. You know, that, or his dudeness, or duder, or el duderino, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.
John Cole
@Fred: So much fail.
alwhite
@Jay in Oregon:
RATZ! You found me out!