Remembering Kaycee Nicole
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Who could have predicted that the Kaycee Nicole scandal, so quick to inflame the hearts and minds of 'bloggers everywhere, would fade so quickly into the corners of our collective memory? Who could have known that the thread that crashed Metafilter would be nothing more than a flash in the pan? Who doubted that the Kaycee Nicole megafest would be the event that brought the 'blogging community to the forefront of mainstream media?
Well, I did.
Less than two months after the "scandal," I haven't seen a single word about the "hurt" and "outrage" expressed by this "tight knit" community of people who cared so much for our poor, young cancer patient. One begins to suspect that these real, serious emotions stemmed not from being sad or angry, but from the disappointment at not having pulled the prank themselves. I mean, mob violence doesn't really have a point, does it? Sure, there may be one or two people at the heart of the mob who actually believe, but the vast majority of people throwing TVs through windows are there to ... throw TVs through windows.
Brown wrote an article for some wanky magazine about the fiasco, and before he submitted it, he sent me a copy on which to comment. It was alright -- a think piece about a mid level Web personality struggling with the pressures of fame -- but I knew as soon as I read the first line that by the time the magazine hit the stands, nobody would remember what they were so angry about in the first place. Brown wrote as if the Kaycee Nicole event would go down in the history books of the Web. But it won't. It hasn't. In the larger cultural context of the Web and all the things that have happen on it, one disfunctional woman in Colorado writing make-believe stories hardly rates as an event of massive proportions. It was just another minor weekend diversion for a few dozen people.
In red block letters across the middle of the page, I wrote "NOBODY CARES."
Unfortunately for his career as a magazine journalist, he disregarded my comment and submitted the piece. I don't suspect we'll be seeing much more from him. Like Kaycee Nicole, Brown will fade out of sight and out of memory by later on this afternoon. Only the cutting edge commentary and wit of Chester Phillip's will remain. God bless me.
Chester Phillips doesn't see why making up a fictional persona is such a terrible offense