Thursday, April 22, 2004

weblogs JFW cannot compete with, #5

On February 7th, I noted the existence of the Hot Abercrombie Chick! weblog and noted that it seemed so conceptually perfect that it could be an intended piece of online performance art. I received flak from some readers for this, who thought it could only reflect something deeply paranoid and politically suspicious about my character that I could even propose such a thing. I since lost track of the HAC weblog, although I did conclude that she was probably not a hoax, even though she had done these various things that were quite consistent with hoax-hood. Ultimately, to have kept it going this long would have required a discipline far stronger than anyone could expect from someone doing it as a prank.

But anyway, now, ten weeks after my post, the world of weblogs is practically bursting with speculation that HAC is--who would have ever guessed it?--a hoax. See weblog posts here or here or here or here or here or here or here. This guy even ran her text through a computer program that counts use of "masculine" versus "feminine" words to determine the gender of the author (with "80% accuracy!" he brags), and then after the results came back "male," he went on to the following moronic flourish:
Look, I hate to be a cynical misogynist, but girls that hot simply aren't that smart and that eager to discuss philosophy. I know lots of hot girls, and even the intelligent ones get by mainly on their looks. Why? It's easier, and all humans, male and female, generally follow the path of least resistance.
Ugh! If she is a hoax, I should be allowed the opportunity to dance around and shout "I Told You So!" to my detractors. Instead, all this makes me now want very much for HAC to not be a hoax. See her response here, which seems pretty middling (neither convincing nor unconvincing) as far as counterarguments to the question of whether or not one exists go. Such drama!

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