Sleaze Watch

I've often thought of instituting 'Sleaze Watch' as a regular feature either here or on the main site, chronicling where on the web The Sleaze has been mentioned, and what's being said. However, I just can't be arsed. Most of the time it would just consist of listings of dullsville message boards where some dolt has posted a link to a story (usually struggling under the misapprehension that it is true), and various other dolts spend several pages discussing it (and usually completely missing the point of the story), before either someone points out it isn't true, or they just get bored and move on to the next five minute wonder.

I've been moved to make this post simply because at least one post concerning one of my stories on one of these boards is, I feel, highly revealing of the mentality of the kind of people I spend so long taking the piss out of: conspiracy theorists. The story in question is I Buried Paul, my parody of the whole "Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced with a double" cobblers, from way back in August. Now, whilst this has been a pretty popular story, it has only now been picked up by the "Paul is Dead" parade, and I found it being discussed here. Now, most of the posters on this 'Nothing is Real' board seem to grasp that it is a parody, and don't seem too offended. Indeed, most them seem to enjoy it. Great. That's fine by me. Then we get to reply number 9 ("number nine", now could that be significant?). This fella clearly isn't amused:

"One of its biggest problems is simple lack of funniness/overload of boredom for the reader. Not well-written, and definitely "borrowing" information from the forums, unknown, of course to 99% of its readers."

Now, whether the piece is funny or well-written is a matter of opinion. (Mind you, in my opinion, someone who actually believes the whole "Paul is Dead" thesis is clearly devoid of any critical faculties). What fascinates me is the assumption that people outside of their little group simply wouldn't understand the story! This really does reinforce what I said in an earlier post about conspiracy theorists - they like to believe that they are somehow party to arcane knowledge, that they are the keepers of the flame. The great unwashed couldn't possibly understand this mystery! What arrogance! The fact is that "Paul is Dead" is one of the most widely known contemporary urban legends. Certainly every Beatles fan has heard at least one variation on it! I think the story's popularity bears this out. Of course, the poster's opinion might have been different had the piece been written by one of the cognoscenti (like themselves - just look at the number of posts they've made: a real hardcore 'Paul is Dead' nutter), rather than by some infidel like me.

As for the charge of 'borrowing' information from the forums - for what it is worth, I'd never even heard of the 'Nothing is Real' forum before I noticed the traffic originating from there amongst my stats. The story was mainly inspired, as I've acknowledged before in Sleaze Diary, by the barking mad '60 If' forum and its associated site and documentation. Most of the actual research for the story came from the excellent Turn Me On, Dead Man site. If you really want a thorough debunking of the whole 'Paul is Dead' madness, then this is the place to go!