Date: June 20th, 2007 2:18 PM Author: magical filthy mental disorder personal credit line
It is not necessary even to look beyond the moniker. "Whokebe," pronounced in the mind, or aloud, is reminiscent of "who can he be?" This question, however, is blurred and distorted into the tribal utterance, "Whokebe," and one can image this ultimate question being chanted around the fires of our most ancient human ancestors. The effect of this figurative transformation is to brilliantly suggest that we are all Whokebe; we are all the answer to the question: "who can he be?" In this sense, Whokebe becomes an "everyman" voicing the universal concerns of all humanity about body image and the finance industry. More elusive, and perhaps more interesting, is the reality that, in the literal sense, Whokebe is actually the only poster on this site.
Date: June 20th, 2007 2:27 PM Author: magenta hall
After weeks of controversy following mainstream media coverage on sexually harassing content, sharply-worded condemnations from law school deans, and the convening of a panel discussion at Harvard Law School, the infamous Autoadmit message board ceased to hide its posters' anonymity Monday. Visitors were finally able to see which posters were using multiple usernames, and other posters were outright identified by their name or school.
Some speculated that a series of identical form letters from consumer advocacy outfit Reputation Defender had finally done the trick, while others suggested that it was more likely that monkeys had begun to fly out of the rear end of Michael Fertik, the inept HLS grad at the helm of Reputation Defender. The real consensus was that site owner Jarrett Cohen had finally broken down after the five thousandth thread containing "white girls with asian guys" jokes, and had finally decided to open the Pandora's box of the message board's user information which he had been secretly collecting.
The truth about Autoadmit's posters didn't take long to discover.
"Yeah, there are only six people posting," admitted Cohen by email this week. "You can see why I didn't want it to get out."
The new user profile information showed that only six individuals are responsible for 100% of the board's often disturbing content, with some taking on upwards of 50 usernames and arguing with themselves for hours late at night about whether bottom 1/3 at Georgetown really does get biglaw or are just pretending, how many drug arrests it takes to have a real Character & Fitness problem for the bar, or how many seconds it would take University of Texas Professor Brian Leiter to start rationalizing his school's drop in the US News rankings.
An obese grandmother in Dubuque, Iowa was revealed as the force behind posters like "pensive," "bigpapapump," "Mandy," "Mind the Gap," and two dozen more. Female posters "Rowan," "saltybabe," "rasquach" and "sugarywitch" were all revealed to be the work of Southwestern School of Law 3L Kevin McDonald, a 41-year old former security guard.
"IAMAREFRIGERATOR" turned out to be an actual refrigerator in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
"WHOOSH!!" said the poster, when contacted for a comment.
In the most surprising turn of events, the identity of one poster turned out to be a member of the elite law school community. The infamous, obsessive poster "superstudyasian" was revealed to be no other than Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh.
"I am appalled by this accusation," said Dean Koh when asked to respond by telephone. "I am much too busy as dean to post thousands of threads praising those who, like me, have loving, committed relationships composed of an Asian male and a Caucasian female. You might expect these antics from David Lat, but not myself."
Koh then whispered, "WGWAG," and hung up the phone.
As the Record went to print Wednesday, the Internet Speech panel hosted by the Berkman Center was still on, despite uninviting Autoadmit administrator Cohen and Michigan law professor and gadfly Ann Althouse the week before the panel.
"This will be the best panel to ever uninvite the people who might say something interesting," said Professor Charles Nesson Wednesday. "I may just uninvite myself."
To elucidate further the issue of W as everyman, a prominent branch of contemporary whokebology, an examination of the whokebe chronology is required. Skeptics have cautioned against adding to the already saturated corpus of whokebe mythography. I maintain that a more thorough and conscientious scholarship can help us avoid the trap of devolving into whokebe hagiography, and indeed, will help us construct a wholly immanent whokebe. The disappearance of whokebe in 2006, through a theologic prism, would appear analogous to the ascent of Christ; and his occasional <sup, doods?> thereafter, renders all too easy a comparison with the descent of the Holy Spirit during Pentacost and subsequent religious revivals. Among the more mystically minded, there exists a sect fervent in its belief that the recent series of legal and extra-legal debacles faced by xoxo are in reality eschatological events and therefore augur the return of whokebe in whole and undisguised form. I would argue, however, that it is possible to conceptualize whokebe as the ground of being that pervades every xoxo post, that in fact the disappearance of whokebe is a theological slight of hand: whokebe has been with us all along.