So, you may or may not have heard that Fake Steve Jobs was outed today in the New York Times as a senior editor of Forbes, thanks to some intrepid reporting by one Brad Stone.  Three words came to mind when I read this story.

1. “Machiavellian”.
Remember when FSJ posted this indignant response about a month ago? Don’t read it if you don’t want. I barely did the first time. The gist of it was that he was quietly enraged because Valleywag went too far in trying to find out his identity. I followed that up with my own opinion about how ludicrous it was to want to be an anonymous blogger.

Well, it looks like he played us *all* for idiots. Pansies. Suckers. Dupes. Turkeys.

Chumps.

Clearly there was nothing actually done on Valleywag’s part, and the post was merely done at FSJ’s amusement. And to that, I give a tip of the hat to your sheer mendaciously and Machiavellian attempts to deliberately waylay the blogtards (he has a ‘clever’ penchant for adding the post-fix ‘tard’ to things/entities/people that he doesn’t have an inclination towards) that have been following your ‘identity’ so closely for the past few months.

2. “Schadenfreude”.
Ah, good ol’ Schadenfreude. Thank God for German, which is the only language that has effectively captured, in a single word, the joy of seeing others suffer. I feel only partly guilty in relishing in some delicious schadenfreude when I think that it was the Gray Old Lady that broke this very specific, very indulgent piece of blogospheric news.

Who else is going to care about this tomorrow, besides tech geeks and ‘blogtards’? No one. And yet, who has beat Valleywag on Valleywag’s on beat? No, its not another blogger, nor even, perhaps, one of the most connected bloggers in the Valley, Mike Arrington. In fact, it seems like “connections” (which super a-list bloggers happily revel in) had nothing to do with sorting out FSJ’s identity.

Good ol’ investigative reporting did. The En-Why-Tee. And they deserve a pat on the back. Albeit that its for covering and breaking a piece of news so narrow that I am *sure* the majority of NYT’s tech readers will be wondering “Who the frack is FSJ and why should I care?” (which will, I’m sure be followed by “Wow, this isn’t funny — what’s the fuss?”)

3. “Meh”.
That’s right. Good ol’ Meh. I am of course referring to the word, perhaps best popularized by the Simpsons, which according to the compendium of the world’s knowledge, is a “word has come to be used as an interjection indicating apathy or lack of enthusiasm, or as an adjective meaning mediocre or uninspiring.”

And if you followed my original post (and even this one — hey, thanks for getting this far) about FSJ, you’ll know that I don’t really think much of FSJ, nor how “funny” and “witty” he is. I recognize that humour, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, but really.

This unbelievably indulgent techno-blogospheric navel gazing is a bit much. YES, I realize we do it far too much to begin with on any number of stories, and NO, I don’t really have an axe to grind.

What’s “funny” about the situation is that when I read about FSJ’s ‘real’ identity, a post by Dwight Silverman (who writes at the Houston Chronicle, who, incidentally was kind enough to refer to my blog as “excellent” ) twigged my memory. Dwight, who is also a fan of FSJ, thought that *knowing* who FSJ’s identity was was going to ruin the fun he was having.

I wasn’t sure, but I think he’s right.

As much “Meh” as I think FSJ is *now*, I can only imagine the depths of my apathy will sink to once I know that FSJ is actually written not — say, by some witty consultant in the wilds of Boston, or someone *in* Apple, or say, even Steve Jobs himself (that would be ‘real’ news) — but a *senior* editor for Forbes?

Meh, indeed.

Well, good luck, Daniel Lyons, or Fake Steve, or whatever moniker you’re going by these days. I think your blog will probably need it, although I’m sure that book you’ve written about the experience probably won’t.

Let’s put aside for a second that Fake Steve Jobs is neither funny nor witty, and ask ourselves why we should believe the shrill outrage of the author of a blog that is *purported* to be funny and witty.

{I could also ask why the technosphere engaged in such extravagant and indulgent navel gazing as to wonder who exactly FSJ is — but I’ll chalk it up the fact that, heck, its the summer. And we’re all looking for things “fun” things to do I suppose.}

Yes, sir, it seems like CNet is once again dredging up the issue over here, about the efforts of some to unmask FSJ. And if you go to FSJ’s own blog he makes some allusions to the exact issue with some seemingly out of character “back off or I’ll sue you” type of tenor, as those as-yet-unnamed individuals may have crossed a “fake line” in trying to find out the “fake Steve.”

First of all, let’s get some things out of the way.

• Those as-yet-unnamed individuals are the gents at Sitening, a web design and search marketing company in Nashville.
• The exact details are featured on Sitening’s blog, where they executed a pretty slick trick to nail his IP address (involving a unique URL and the knowledge that Steve uses Yahoo mail).
• From that point they were able to pinpoint what part of the world the FSJ was writing from, and lo and behold, its from Boston.
• Who is the leading FSJ candidate from Boston? Andy Ihnatko, whose blog is over here.

See? Its nice when we use details, rather than vagaries and hand-waving.

My biggest beef with the whole thing — you know, besides the fact that FSJ isn’t funny — is the possibility that the ‘outrage’ from FSJ is real.

Hey, I get it. Andy might get in trouble if his bosses found out about his writings. Or maybe Andy might directly. Maybe he has friends who are Mac-heads. Or he does business with mac books. Or something. But for a real example for a blog who was “outed” look at what happened to Dead2.0, when the author was supposedly outed there. Quick exit, stage left [apparently he worked for a VC backed company by day and was satirizing the same industry at night -- or something like that]  VC company that was funding companies in an industry that Dead 2.0 was publicly ridiculing]

But come on.

If the whole dead2.0 thing taught us anything — heck, if BLOGGING teaches you anything — its that the blogosphere has an insatiable appetite for what is perceived at is real. We read blogs and we write blogs because we believe that we are reading some kernel — or writing about — some kernel of truth. Blogs are “different” that way from the mainstream media and, on another note, its exactly why bloggers get so riled up about conflicts of interest.

That desire for wanting things to be “real”, and to be keeping it “real” extends right to the authors. Especially if the content is interesting enough to demand it. People ask me if its important that we know who is writing our favourite blogs. Would it matter if the people *behind* the blogs were fake? Or that it was ghost-written?

Some of have said that the only thing that should matter is the content.

That’s partially true.

On the other hand, I think that part of what makes a blog a blog is your connection with the author of that blog — and that connection ceases to be real if you’d ever found out that their identity turned out to be a lie.

Which is all a round-about way of saying that the identity of who is actually blogging Does Actually Matter to people who read your blog, and if you’re deliberately hiding it, people will want to find out [and in fact, there could be a bunch of reasons for wanting to, and I'm sure that one of them includes "for no other reason than I could"].

Heck, if you want to flog a metaphor, here you go: if you play with Fake, expect to be Found – especially if your blog is as “good” or “funny” as FSJ’s.

And that’s the thing.

I think that Andy should know this. Or whomever is really behind FSJ. And maybe that’s why the outrage is really fake. Or, rather, that I hope it is. Because FSJ should really *not* be surprised that people want to find out his real identity. And if he was *truly* and *genuinely* worried, FSJ should have stopped a long time ago, perhaps when the first rumours about who his / her / its identity really was.

I mean, otherwise, its just sheer idiocy to think that someone, somewhere, isn’t going to try and find out.

And FSJ might not be funny, but surely he’s not an idiot.

… right?