Just another bunch of intoxicated pigeons. ([info]iheartoothecae) wrote in [info]fake_lj_deaths,
2005-05-09 00:22:00
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[info]arthurblake

[info]arthurblake was the first and, as far as I know, only fake internet person I have believed to be real. "He" added me to his friends list in 2002 after finding me through the [info]invertebrates community I created, and we occasionally talked roaches. Roaches turned out to be a big part of the spooky stuff surrounding his "disappearance". Two other online journals were also a part of the story: http://minty4resh.blogspot.com and http://stephenpeterson.home.mindspring.com (Stephen's journal is no longer available, and unfortunately I neglected to save a copy of it).

Both Arthur and Minty's journals were created/first updated within days of each other. (This would set off Faker Alarm bells for me now, but I didn't notice it then.) Arthur and Stephen were supposed to have been roommates in college, and Stephen later became friends with Minty. They all live in Boston. Arthur and Minty meet each other sometime soon after the journals are created. Eventually Weird Shit goes down and gets more and more frequent. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone who wishes to read the archives, but themes include: spooky mystery cult guys who make ominous and incomprehensible speeches! swarms of cockroaches! old occult woodprints! mysterious languages and incantations! insanity! eventual disappearance! unhelpful police! independant sleuthing!

[info]arthurblake seems to me to be more refined than most LJ fakery, and is more of a work of fiction than a drama factory or attention generator. The author/s did get a little heavy handed at the end, and it is this that (finally) tipped me off that none of it was real. Stephen's last entry contained a laughably bad "secret message" to Minty: random letters that were capitalized throughout the paragraph spelled out the phrase "MINTY DON'T STOP LOOKING". After this last entry in Stephen's journal, the story just died off.

Anyway, I occasionally go back and read the archives and laugh at myself for having believed any of it. It's a fun story. If you have a little time to spare, check it out.

Edit:
I just found this and haven't finished reading it, but it's (!!!!!!!!!!!) the documentation for the entire storyline.
http://www.barbelith.com/topic/6778

Sweet.

--
Edit II!

LJ users in on the plot, though not necessarily authors of any of the journals:
[info]damabupuk (primary author of Arthur Blake)
[info]grantb (primary author of Minty)
[info]squirmelia
[info]theapplepicker
[info]toddius
more?

(There were several different authors over the course of the story, so I don't really know who wrote what.)
Tags: arthurblake, damabupuk, grantb

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  • 34 comments

[info]subbes

May 8 2005, 22:31:17 UTC 7 years ago

I love love LOVE reading ARGs and similar, and LJ has occasionally been a trailhead for some smaller ARGs. This wasn't one,but is did get a few ARG-ers thinking it might be a game rather than a fictional work. Either way, I came across this one after the fact and really did enjoy the interlinked fictional aspect. Hooray for URIs.

[info]mootilda23

May 8 2005, 22:37:34 UTC 7 years ago

what are ARGs and URIs....sorry i am dumb.

[info]thesiren

7 years ago

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[info]strange_doll

7 years ago

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[info]mootilda23

7 years ago

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[info]subbes

7 years ago

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[info]iheartoothecae

May 9 2005, 00:39:37 UTC 7 years ago

How did you find it?

[info]subbes

7 years ago

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[info]iheartoothecae

May 8 2005, 22:41:18 UTC 7 years ago

Priceless.

"Can I just for a moment tell you how guilty I felt completely lying to that person who left the comment on Art's lj.

Okay, I'm over it now, it just felt a bit odd, that's all."


ahahahahahahaha

The worst part about this is I had a huge crush on Arthur. I mean, he was like tailor-made for me. Digs bugs, old books, reclusive, a little creepy... fucking dreamboat, that's what.

[info]mabnyx

May 8 2005, 22:52:50 UTC 7 years ago

MAN!

Maybe I'm lame but this is CREEPY!

[info]chasingangie05

May 9 2005, 00:25:38 UTC 7 years ago

I'm def lame...

Even though I am totally aware that this was a hoax... I will be having a nightmare about eating a cochroach tonight... :(

[info]songofglory308

May 9 2005, 05:15:26 UTC 7 years ago

These things are definitely good to read on a boring day. It's funny how my best friends name just happens to be Mintee(minty). I get amused easily.

[info]parapagus_soup

May 9 2005, 07:40:23 UTC 7 years ago

Now THIS is what I'm talking about. Screw the fake babies, this is awesome.

[info]phenomenologic

May 10 2005, 14:25:17 UTC 7 years ago

Dude, seriously.

[info]bluecollarmoxie

May 13 2005, 14:38:40 UTC 7 years ago

oh my goodness you have a lileks icon

[info]parapagus_soup

7 years ago

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[info]bluecollarmoxie

7 years ago

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[info]lateda

May 9 2005, 10:33:14 UTC 7 years ago

Arthur sounds like a character from "Creepshow" the movie. Based on 5 Stephen King stories.

[info]lateda

May 9 2005, 10:37:28 UTC 7 years ago

"I'm convinced the computer at home has become infested with roaches. They're getting bigger, braver, like small mice. And I don't have the heart to squish them any more. I've given up on the landlord. Every day I see at least one, then it scurries away out of sight. I can picture them inside the tower, running electrons to and fro, carrying the words I type into the machine and from there, across the telephone cables to you, here. This message sponsored by roaches. They're not so bad, once you get to know them. Like crickets with bigger wings."

One of the stories in "Creepshow" was about a rich man who was deathly afraid of roaches and felt like they were infesting his apartment. In the end the roaches killed him. Hahaha

[info]lateda

May 9 2005, 10:40:22 UTC 7 years ago

One more thing. The roaches were in the man's computer also. I believe if I remember right the first roach you actually see in the story is one crawling across a computer screen. Hahaha

[info]damabupuk

May 9 2005, 11:57:16 UTC 7 years ago

I did feel guilty at the time. Y'know, I've yet to see Creepshow, but that's an interesting synchronicity, in that we were attempting a pseudo-Lovecraftian feel for the story, and one of the stories in Creepshow is loosely based on Lovecraft's "THe Colour Out Of Space". Excellent. I have to admit that until eyeawry e-mailed me this morning (May 9, 2005), I hadn't thought about Arthur for a long time. I kind of lost track of him when the store I owned closed and I had to get a real job without a high-speed connection. It's a shame Stephen's blog is no longer up, as I never actually read the "end" of the story. It's nice to see that people enjoyed it, and i do apologize if anyone was annoyed by our deception. It was all in good, if a little weird, fun.

[info]lesser_gods

May 9 2005, 12:12:25 UTC 7 years ago

Good job, though, and thank you for the entertainment!

[info]subbes

May 9 2005, 12:13:12 UTC 7 years ago

One of these days I'd like to reread the ljs while wearing my Shub-niggurath perfume.

[info]chasingangie05

May 9 2005, 16:53:44 UTC 7 years ago

It was a good read. No fake baby deaths= good time!

[info]or_else

January 26 2006, 14:34:43 UTC 6 years ago

wow, I read the whole thing, it was really entertaining. Good work, mate.

[info]surenotgunshy

April 3 2006, 01:25:54 UTC 6 years ago

Just caught these blogs(well the Arthur and Minty ones).

Have to say fantastic, fantastic job. Such a pleasure to read. If I'd not been informed that they were fake before reading them I can easily see myself being fooled. In retrospect there are some things that might have been done better. Having at least two of the three fake blogs on lj would have helped you no end as It's so much easier to get readers here then it is with an unlinked new blog out in the ether. All in all though it was awesome. Would have loved to have been able to read Stephen in full but such is life.

Thanks for having had a hand in something so entertaining.

[info]grantb

May 10 2005, 14:45:05 UTC 7 years ago

I feel so warm and fuzzy inside now.

I, uh, well, I think it was *me* who you were talking to on the invertebrates community. Sorry. I know I was the one who did most of the adding of friends to the journal, especially near the end, and I was more forward than some of the people when it came to corresponding with commenters.

The whole cockroach thing, though... it was Jade (a Brazilian guy) who started that, and the rest of us ran with it.

The "secret message" was, um, ElijahProphet? I *think* that was who was running Stephen -- that journal was always a little less integrated into the rest of the story because I don't think anyone other than EP had the password to that blog. (That is, if I'm remembering right, an always-questionable proposition.) My favorite secret message, actually, is the URL in the gibberish the post-apotheosis Arthur attempts to post onto his journal from the other side. Not that it's incredibly meaningful, but still, makes me happy at night.

When the roaches come.



[info]surenotgunshy

April 3 2006, 01:32:32 UTC 6 years ago

Just caught these blogs(well the Arthur and Minty ones).

Have to say fantastic, fantastic job. Such a pleasure to read. If I'd not been informed that they were fake before reading them I can easily see myself being fooled. In retrospect there are some things that might have been done better. Having at least two of the three fake blogs on lj would have helped you no end as It's so much easier to get readers here then it is with an unlinked new blog out in the ether. All in all though it was awesome. Would have loved to have been able to read Stephen in full but such is life.

A great deal of Minty is fantastic as it feels so genuine. Many times while reading it despite the fact I knew it was false I forgot that and felt like I was reading a real persons words. I guess part of that is that she had to deal with less of the supernatural than Arthur but it's still a great achievement.

Thanks so much for having had a hand in creating something so entertaining.

[info]grantb

6 years ago

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[info]night_roamer

November 15 2006, 04:56:12 UTC 5 years ago

I know I'm joining all of this really late, but I read all the blogs and that thread where you all were discussing it and... wow, just wow. I got shivers several times reading all that. I'm going to be freaked out for a very long time. Amazing job!! I definitely would've been fooled had I been a reader at the time. Heck, I caught myself believing a couple times even so. *awed*

[info]grantb

5 years ago

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[info]fkajason

November 9 2005, 09:44:30 UTC 6 years ago

Is this the guy? http://web.archive.org/web/20040605152953/http://stephenpeterson.home.mindspring.com/

[info]saloot

December 20 2005, 15:13:04 UTC 6 years ago

Wow. That was pretty awesome. Is there a mirror of Stephen's blog somewhere? Or can somone repost it? Because i can't get the archive.org link to work.
I also believe that part of minty's blog is missing, specifically the bit where she posts about going to Arthur's after he 'dies.'

[info]yammerin_nutsak

November 30 2006, 22:06:23 UTC 5 years ago

I guess no one here reads Chrishopher Moore books...
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