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POST POST MORTEM
00:17 PST 04 APR 1999
Here's a follow up to the thought-provoking letter from Paul Hosking, written by Greg Underwood. And an articulate follow-up it is too. The mail from the past few days has really gotten me thinking about what both of these letters are addressing:

I have to agree that Mr. Hoskins (or can I just call him Paul? :) brought up some very interesting points, and I've been thinking about them a little. I wanted to respond with a couple of my thoughts, specifically wrt the following paragraph:

---<cut>---
So are we a group of easily swayed, gullible Don Quoite types eagerly awaiting the next windmill to be pointed out by a merry prankster (or someone with more devious intent)? Or is it that The Media (be it traditional or New) is so amazingly powerful that it can override a culture's instincts and direct that culture with only a small amount of effort? Or is it simply a reflection of human psychology that has kept the long tradition of hoaxes running from before written history?
---<cut>---

I would argue that the prank worked because of two interrelated factors. 1st, the nature of the net vs. The Media is that the net tends to be a lot faster in spreading news (be it real facts or pure bunk). This gives the readers of the 'net a sense that they are getting the inside scoop, long before The Media gets it. For example, I read a number of the hardware and gaming sites (Tom's Hardware, Sharky Extreme, Blue's News, GameSpot, etc), as well as Game Developer Magazine. Time and again I see Game Developer printing stories related to, or sometimes even direct reprints of, things I read on the 'net weeks, sometimes months before. This sense of 'the inside scoop' which the 'net fosters was a good chunk of why I wasn't surprised to not see anything in the rest of The Media about it, for the first few days anyway.

The second factor was that you very pointedly did not reveal who it was that was suing. This further heightened the sense of 'the inside scoop'... that we were hearing it _first_, as it happened; that the name couldn't be revealed as things weren't ready to go public yet.

In retrospect, concealing the name of the mythical litigant should have rang some warning bells... How many lawsuits (or announcements there of) have you heard of where one party remains anonymous? To be quite frank, in American law, I don't think they can, what with that pesky 6th Amendment to the constitution (emphasis added):

In _ALL_ criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and _PUBLIC_ trial, ... _TO BE CONFRONTED WITH THE WITNESSES AGAINST HIM_ ...

Granted, since you are based out of Canada, I don't know how the legalities would work out. However, I highly doubt you can actually sue someone while remaining anonymous. All court related actions are a matter of public record, and therefore can not be concealed.

So, I'd say Paul hit the nail on the head with all three questions. Our gullibility (not questioning that one litigant was anonymous), combined with the power of the 'net vs. The Media ('the inside scoop'), played on most people's need for righteous indignation (how COULD that "unnamed software giant" dare to attack the basic right to free speech of a cartoon strip?).

Quite frankly, it was a brilliant joke, and I bow in your general direction. It also showed me how much I rely on the few things I do get a chance to read on the 'net. It pointed out that I really ought to branch out a little more, be more thorough before I accept something as gospel (even when it does come from a respectable and trusted source). Paul again pointed out the brilliance of the joke in that it not only got us to laugh at our selves, but it also got us to think about ourselves and how it is that we come to accept something as fact.

Touchi

-Greg

ARRIVING ON A JET PLANE
00:20 PST 04 APR 1999
Well, I'll be on my way from The Gathering very shortly. I'll write a full review when I get back and try to post some pictures. All in all it's been an amazing experience and I met some fantastic people. I'm looking forward to going home and sleeping for about 20 hours.

POST MORTEM INTELLIGENCE
00:03 PST 03 APR 1999

Here's an eloquent and very well-thought out letter from Paul Hosking. He brings up points seriously worth considering by everyone in the community, focusing on our perceptions, cynicism and trust (or lack thereof) of the media and April Fools Jokes:

OK. It may sound a little contrived (like that kid who "knew" everything... and when you caught him on something, he replied with "I was just testing you" no matter how often it happened). In any case, I was on to you guys. I had you all pegged. Really. If you want to know my reasoning... I'd be glad to discuss it.

However, beyond the "I knew it" and "damn you people" messages flying around, there is an interesting notion to consider. With our culture (you know - jaded, questioning, suspicious of the media, etc, etc) how were so many people duped?

I admit the question is a little unfair. There was a reasonable amount of collaborating evidence. More than one person was "squirming" under the apparent heavy-handed legal assault. That was a nice touch. But then it was also a dead give-away. It should have raised people's curiosity that "established" media didn't report the legal maneuver while all the sites involved were, to one degree or another, related (you'll have to tell me exactly how close of friends you folks are). If anything, it galvanized those who fell for the hoax.

So are we a group of easily swayed, gullible Don Quoite types eagerly awaiting the next windmill to be pointed out by a merry prankster (or someone with more devious intent)? Or is it that The Media (be it traditional or New) is so amazingly powerful that it can override a culture's instincts and direct that culture with only a small amount of effort? Or is it simply a reflection of human psychology that has kept the long tradition of hoaxes running from before written history?

Whatever the answer is our community has been a part of an unwitting experiment. Most April Fools jokes end in a quick guffaw. This one provides a chance for introspection even if some egos feel like they've gone through a few windmills.

Well, after over *1000* emails on the subject, I can see that some people, maybe 10% or so, were actually angered by the joke. This came as a BIG surprise to me for a variety of reasons, but I think the main one is that I truly had no idea how much people cared about User Friendy. Scouts honor and all that.

Interestingly enough, the rest of the mails were along the lines of "Damn you, you got me," to "I have *never* been had like that before, you guys are *brilliant*." The congratulatory stuff aside, I'm dismayed that some people actually think that I (and the other site owners) conducted this joke with malicious intent. I draw this comic strip because I enjoy making people laugh, at big companies, little companies, people, events, and even me. The opportunity to make people laugh at themselves is very rare, and April Fools was the best opportunity to take. So the joke was put together, we carefully executed it, and it seems the majority of readers thought it was damn-ass funny.

The ones who thought it was very UNfunny raised a few points. They mentioned the 'cry wolf' syndrome. The pointed to 'having their feelings manipulated'. Some of them even said that this brand of humour was beneath UF. My answers: If UF or any other site really does get sued, you'll KNOW its real very quickly. If you think you've 'been manipulated' keep in mind that my purpose was to shock you and make you laugh at yourself. And finally, brands of humour are very subjective. Enough people found the prank funny enough that I think we did all right. With an audience as large as UF's, I *have* to base it on percentages.

And for the record, I am both humbled and flattered by the amount of caring and devotion shown by the readers. I can't stress enough how much I underestimated the community. I'll never do that again, or at least try hard not to. I won't apologize for the joke, not ever, but I am indeed sorry to the people who felt betrayed. I'm a cartoonist. I'm here to make you laugh, and if I make you upset, it makes me upset too...probably more than you realize.

Thanks for all the support. UFies are an awesome group of people.

---

Y'ALL HAD YOUR CHAIN YANKED
11:00 PST 01 APR 1999
(April Fools!) There is no mysterious corporation throwing its weight around. There were no registered letters. There were no threats. We control the horizontal and the vertical and we gave your collective leg a slight pull. Yup, we bad. :)

We did learn some interesting things during this whole farce. I got some very concerned letters from Microsoft employees, some of them quite senior in the ranks, who said they'd land really hard on any 'brain-dead idiot' that pulled something as stupid as legal action against User Friendly or the other sites. See, MS employees can be nice and smart too. They even fall in the top 20 companies who frequent UF on a daily basis.

Another, much more salient thing was discovered: the voice of the UFie community (and the Segfault community, and the BeDope community, and the Slashdot community, all of which overlap heavily) is a mighty and powerful thing. I'm glad I'm not on the bad end of the stick you guys were waving.

My thanks to my partners in crime, who came up with, developed and executed this terrible joke: Mike at BeDope, Scott at Segfault, Rob at Slashdot, and the local gangsters Arcterex and Iambe. Take a bow, people. You guys did great.

Now here's hoping you all will forgive us for this laugh at your expense. Until next year. ;)

One last thing: my thanks to the all of the UFies for being such good sports. I know the joke hit some of you particularly hard (as indicated by some of the e-mail that has crossed my screen) but ultimately the chain yanking we did was to prove that UFies can laugh at themselves as well as at certain unnamed companies. ;) As the Norwegians say, "Takk!"

MESSAGE FROM ILLIAD
08:00 PST 31 MAR 1999
[Arcterex]
Please accept Illiad's applogies for taking so long to get back to you via email It's likely he won't be able to reply until sometime next week due to logistics and the backlog he's facing. He's having a blast though, I bet :-)

OBSESSED WITH STARWARS?
00:01 PST 31 MAR 1999
[Arcterex]
Well, yet another Star Wars trailer of sorts was released today. Slashdot.org and aint-it-cool-news.com carried the story, and now I carry it to you. The trailer was created by the guys over at theforce.net from footage on 60 minutes. It's about 11 mb (quicktime 3), and you can choose from a list of mirror sites here.

Update:
UFie and Star Wars fan Dawn wrote to tell me that theforce.net is down and aint-it-cool was giving no data (there is a better link for aint-it-cool above now). Either the power of the UF static is far greater than I thought, or theforce.net is being rebooted or something. We killed them I think. There is a (and be gentle please!) copy of the trailer mirrored on my UFies site.

THAT BRITISH DUDE
10:01 PST 29 MAR 1999
I've had a few queries about the identity of the AI in today's strip:That would be Holly, the ship's computer in the wildly popular Brit TV comedy 'Red Dwarf' (try http:/www.rdw.org/ for more info on the show). If you haven't seen Red Dwarf yet I highly recommend that you do. The show is good enough to make you barf a lung.

MAIL FROM THE LEGAL BEAGLES
10:05 PST 29 MAR 1999
A brief update: apparently a motion has been filed and my lawyers will be meeting with their lawyers tomorrow afternoon. I'll get an update by phone. That's all I can say.

POLLS POLLS AND MORE POLLS
00:01 PST 29 MAR 1999
[Arcterex]
WildOne has informed me of the results for the latest poll. They were:

 Poll #4 The Uberdrink in my life is: Coke: 15.21% Guinness: 13.32% Dr. Pepper: 12.67% Coffee: 12.17% Mountain Dew: 11.73% Other: 9.41% Jolt: 6.37% Espresso: 5.65% Pepsi: 5.65% Water: 5.43% Herbal Tea: 2.39% Total Votes: 1381 

The latest poll is now up too... this one is "On his trip Illiad will...".