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So the New York Times has at last cracked the identity of Fake Steve Jobs, thus ending the closest thing that Silicon Valley has ever had to a literary mystery: it’s Forbes’s Dan Lyons. I say kudos to reporters Brad Stone and John Markoff for solving this. After all, everybody anywhere near the tech journalism world either wanted to break that story or was actively trying to. The Browser knows for a fact that one financial publication was on the verge of enlisting the services of Donald Foster, the Vassar English professor who outed Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors, using a computer to compare linguistic similarities between Klein’s published work and the novel. But what do the Times reporters get in return for their hard work? A lot of carping from fans of FSJ. On the Times’s Bits blog, about 115 comments have been posted since Sunday evening, most of them incredibly hostile. “Congratulations on ruining something good. Hope you’re happy,” reads a typical comment. This is ridiculous. I don’t care how much you loved the often smart, often vicious posts on FSJ: did you really expect the rest of the world to sit back and let this parody go on indefinitely without trying to solve the puzzle? It’s in the nature of these literary hoaxes that the hoaxer wants to be caught: in part because the hoaxer wants recognition for his or her cleverness, and in part because it helps generate publicity to sell the inevitable book (which in FSJ’s case is scheduled for October publication). Some of the comments imply that it is beneath the efforts of a reputable paper the New York Times to put investigative resources into such a trivial matter. Again, nonsense: if the Times sat back and let some clever blogger solve the mystery, it would be one more blogosphere piece of evidence that the Times is irrelevant to modern readers. This is so simple even a blogger can understand it: The New York Times has broken the story that everyone, even FSJ himself, wanted to be broken. Get over it. Filed under Apple, Fake Steve Jobs
Posted by jimledbetter 10:09 am 12 Comments
 | Add a comment “This is so simple even a blogger can understand it[ ... ]” [ spit take ] Hmm. I take it you’ve been reading Powerline or Michelle Malkin again…. Posted By Marq, Chicago, IL : August 7, 2007 5:52 am
@ Jeff from New York - You know things are getting convoluted when a Fake Bill Gates blog has a post concerning the Fake Steve Jobs. Posted By Thomas, Portland, OR : August 6, 2007 5:13 pm
Umm, in the grand scheme of things, is this really worth this much banter? Posted By Dave, Rockville, MD : August 6, 2007 5:03 pm
I’m just mad that I didn’t solve it myself….And that I had Dan visit a client very recently as “Dan Lyons of Forbes” ; when I was really giving “Fake Steve” access to my client…. Posted By Kyle A., Boston, MA : August 6, 2007 4:17 pm
Wow, you have a chance to understand what your readership finds engaging and you spin it as if it’s all about you. Posted By Chris, Seattle, WA : August 6, 2007 3:25 pm
Can you please send a note to Riley Berry 1234 coit rd plano Tx that there is no santa clause or easter bunny now that you have broke this mystery, My granddaughter needs to know the truth sooner or later. Posted By Jim Ruestmann, Plano Tx : August 6, 2007 2:22 pm
Sometimes not solving the mystery is the best part. But your right, someone is going to expose the secrets, maybe even the secret holder him or herself for as you said a book deal. Maybe that is why magic is such “ohhhh” and “ahhhhh”. FGor the most part those are still secrets. Posted By SierraNightTide, Los Angeles, CA : August 6, 2007 12:34 pm
You said: “This is so simple even a blogger can understand it” You seem a little bitter about the blogsphere. Finding yourself more and more irrelevant these days? Posted By Cory, Neenah, Wisconsin : August 6, 2007 11:44 am
To bad the New York Times doesn’t use its investigative resources when publishing all those politically bias articles. Its just not the same paper since it started pandering to the left fulltime. Posted By David, Atlanta : August 6, 2007 11:28 am
Wow. So your argument now is the New York Times is justified in putting resources into a trivial matter just because the “blogosophere” would criticize them if they … didn’t. You’re not very good at this, are you? FSJ is nothing more or less than entertainment, and the Times ruined it for many people. Do you really expect those people (I am not among them: I personally don’t really care) to simply not mind that the Times essentially killed FSJ? What world are you living in? Maybe you think they should be grateful to the Times for taking away some of the joy they got from this web site each week? Seriously, how could any rational person NOT expect that many people would be angry about it? You cannot change basic human nature: you take away something people have and like, and they will be upset. Get over it, yourself. Posted By Pudge, Arlington, WA : August 6, 2007 11:27 am
While the real Steve Jobs must be relieved, the competition is pissed. The usually reticent Bill Gates already had some not-so-namaste things to say about the whole Daniel Lyons affair. Posted By Jeff, New York, New York : August 6, 2007 10:36 am
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Now to find out who the real Steve Jobs is.