Yet more about "Himmmm"
[Note: This blog entry has been edited from its original publication. See here for details.]
Whee. Whirlwind of gossip this week.
One of the more recent posts by "Himmmm" thanks [someone] for basically falling on his sword to 'protect my career/privacy'. Whether this is real or just a couple of frantic guys with a lot of sock puppets, it's kind of hilarious. Seriously, it's just like the infamous Something Awful thread, "Solve the Mystery of the Internet Whore! Win a Fabulous Prize!" Only better, because this one involves me "investigating" by sitting down and watching YouTube videos of Robert Downey, Jr., being a complete smartass to people who are unwisely trying to conduct a serious interview with him. Yannow, he's not the first person I ever would have thought of for Sherlock Holmes, but if you really want an actor who knows what the world looks like from the wrong end of a two-week coke binge, you could do way worse.
My semi-expert opinion as a forensic sociolinguist is that there's at least two guys behind the account: The early pro-quality essayist, and the one with the less-than-spotless typography. Please believe me when I say that dudes who thumb-smash on iPhones all the time and people who type polished tales about Elizabeth Taylor really cannot switch from one typing style to the other without seriously hurting their writer-brains. This is why you never see, like, Neil Gaiman tweet anything without correct caps and punctuation. Wil Wheaton can only manage it when he's writing in lolcat.
Anyhow, both the "[someone]" and the "thanks for outing yourself, [someone]!" voices seem to be either writing on a platform without a proper keyboard, or typing by stabbing keys with one finger. Interestingly, the supposedly-not-[someone] voice also apologizes more than once for writing without the spellcheck on, even though there are few misspellings in what he floods into the comments -- the reason it looks touchscreen thumb-smashy is because he's trying to use some pretty complex phrasing, and whatever he's typing on doesn't deal very well with em dashes and ellipses. I don't have an iPhone (what he claims to have -- and no, that is not a clue, eighty bajillion people have those things) so I don't know how simplistic its interface really is.
Whee. Whirlwind of gossip this week.
One of the more recent posts by "Himmmm" thanks [someone] for basically falling on his sword to 'protect my career/privacy'. Whether this is real or just a couple of frantic guys with a lot of sock puppets, it's kind of hilarious. Seriously, it's just like the infamous Something Awful thread, "Solve the Mystery of the Internet Whore! Win a Fabulous Prize!" Only better, because this one involves me "investigating" by sitting down and watching YouTube videos of Robert Downey, Jr., being a complete smartass to people who are unwisely trying to conduct a serious interview with him. Yannow, he's not the first person I ever would have thought of for Sherlock Holmes, but if you really want an actor who knows what the world looks like from the wrong end of a two-week coke binge, you could do way worse.
My semi-expert opinion as a forensic sociolinguist is that there's at least two guys behind the account: The early pro-quality essayist, and the one with the less-than-spotless typography. Please believe me when I say that dudes who thumb-smash on iPhones all the time and people who type polished tales about Elizabeth Taylor really cannot switch from one typing style to the other without seriously hurting their writer-brains. This is why you never see, like, Neil Gaiman tweet anything without correct caps and punctuation. Wil Wheaton can only manage it when he's writing in lolcat.
Anyhow, both the "[someone]" and the "thanks for outing yourself, [someone]!" voices seem to be either writing on a platform without a proper keyboard, or typing by stabbing keys with one finger. Interestingly, the supposedly-not-[someone] voice also apologizes more than once for writing without the spellcheck on, even though there are few misspellings in what he floods into the comments -- the reason it looks touchscreen thumb-smashy is because he's trying to use some pretty complex phrasing, and whatever he's typing on doesn't deal very well with em dashes and ellipses. I don't have an iPhone (what he claims to have -- and no, that is not a clue, eighty bajillion people have those things) so I don't know how simplistic its interface really is.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteHaving known more than one military brat, I am given to understand that if you really are military intelligence, you don't TELL anyone you're military intelligence. You tell them you're military, and then leave it alone. So, either he's lying, or he was a spook and has now lost it to the point where he's no longer able to keep a lid on it.
ReplyDeleteRight-wing I would believe, and he might be Christian, but some of the personal stuff he posted as "Himmmm" wasn't particularly in line with what's usually meant by the phrase "right-wing Christian", if that makes any sense. In particular the "I don't care what consenting adults get up to in their own lives" wouldn't fly very well with the Christian right -- their more usual message is "stop people from doing immoral things for the good of society". He was either obfuscating deliberately or he's just bonkers.
If they're trying to gather support, they're not doing it very well. "Himmmm" didn't post anything specifically Evangelical in nature and is being treated as a Hollywood/internet mystery, and the Kony 2012 founder just blew it by running screaming into the street and wanking in front of witnesses, including someone with a camera.