Originally Posted by
Randall Flagg
Originally Posted by
Rahfa
Does anybody remember the guy who posed as Stephen King on TDT.net? I know that story's come up before...it was funny at the time.
I vaguely recall that it happened, but the details escape me. I'd love to know more.
I also remember Uncle Fardo. He was the funniest person on the site, and I never could figure out who he/she was. Perhaps even more than one person pulled it off.
Maybe this will jog somebody else's memory for better, more specific details.
Basically, there was a guy whose name escapes me but he posted pretty cogent comments, and had a lot of good things to say about writing and books - he DID know what he was talking about the vast majority of the time.
his style was similar to King's - not in words, specifically, but style. It sounded a lot like King.
Now - the part I don't remember is how it went from an intelligent poster with a King style to people thinking he might BE King. I feel like he donated money to a few things, and I'm pretty sure he helped somebody with a signed book, maybe? He WAS a good guy...even as I type this, I feel like I remember that he dropped hints that he had a hookup in King's office...and slowly over time, implied he knew Marsha better than most (but my memory is iffy). And again, I feel like he proved some sort of connection with a signed book - so it was POSSIBLE. It wasn't just some clown on a message board running his mouth.
There was a point where people started asking him outright, and he did not confirm or deny, but he was cagily evasive - but obviously there were suspicions about his motives. Of the people who cared, most didn't really believe he was - but WANTED to believe, and then some of course flat-out DID believe. Because he HAD helped people out in a few times - so it wasn't like he wasn't backing it up.
The actual emails were posted, but finally Tyler (I think?) emailed him a catfish email where he played along with it and was basically "If you are King, I'll never tell anybody, but this is incredible you're on the site, blah blah..." without actually believing it was him. And then the guy actually said "yes, I am King, but don't tell anybody." I wish I'd thought to copy it, because it was VERY pretentious - he was full-on acting at that point. I can't remember any lines from it, but it was written in the very informal style you'd expect from King - the guy was a great mimic.
But since the whole thing was a trap, obviously Tyler told everybody and banned him from the site - I can't remember the actual clinching evidence, but it's not a case where "wait, maybe it was King and you banned him by mistake!" They did something to confirm it wasn't him - I think Tyler might have contacted Marsha to ask, and King himself said it wasn't...in fact, again, as I type, that's the memory that comes to mind. That Marsha was like "King didn't even know the site existed until you just told me." Or something equally soulcrushing at the time.
But I don't remember the guy's username or anything...and I think once banned, that was just the end. He didn't plead his case or anything.There were people on his side - he HAD helped people, so that was baffling.
And his posts were very good, and his observatons I recall being pretty well-considered..he wasn't a blowhard - I remember early on I had suspicious that it COULD be King, even though I knew it wasn't - but I think it was just a normal fan who was aping King's writing style and then he wanted to have fun with neither confirming or denying, and then it just out of hand. I felt bad, because unless I'm totally misremembring, the reason people ended up trusting him was because he was helping people out - it wasn't like people were giving him money, it was the other way around. Very strange event.
I was just an audience member, though, not any kind of participant. It was good gossip for a little while, but it faded quickly - of course the people who were fooled were disappointed and didn't want to talk about it again, and even the people who never believed were still sad that a good member was a fraud AND I'm pretty sure it didn't help that the one response from the actual, real SK was fairly dismissive of the site itself. I have a memory that Marsha's response was pretty cold - not unfriendly, just utterly dismissive.