BCC Zeitcast 52: Obey Aaron!
“Submit to the leaders, don’t think you’re special.”
This is the second of four conversations I have recorded with individuals who were closely involved with the Banner of Heaven Weblog. The individuals interviewed represent different points of reference, but all played a role and felt some measure of the consequences of the hoax. In this entry, Rusty Clifton joins Scott B. for a discussion of how things began to come crashing down around the fraudulent blog.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Assigned Reading:
- Review of Aaron B. Cox
- Review of Jenn Mailer (shelving incident)
- Why The Banner of Heaven Is Fake (aka The 9 Moons Expositor)
- BoH Contest, Prize Inside (aka Rusty brings McCarthyism to the Bloggernacle)
- Aaron B. Cox plays lacrosse at Duke? (via Snarker)
- Aaron Fenton’s Wikipedia Page (free t-shirt for anyone who gets him to make an appearance in this thread!)
- Obey Giant
The Original Aaron
(Note: This picture was used in Aaron’s original profile, but it was cropped so that it was not so obviously an athlete for Duke.)
UPDATE:
The Impact of 9M's Expose On BoH Traffic
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Subscribe to the BCC Zeitcast in iTunes here. (Also, by way of shameless self-promotion, please write a brief review in iTunes if you feel so inspired.)
One of my favorite T-Shirts, in fact.
Comment by Steve Evans — June 17, 2010 @ 12:27 pm
The ‘Burbs is a great, great flick.
Comment by sister blah 2 — June 17, 2010 @ 12:56 pm
Also, this is the first time I’ve seen the Aaron pic. Great casting!
Comment by sister blah 2 — June 17, 2010 @ 1:02 pm
Weird. I can play the Miranda zeitcast, but I got nothing on the Aaron zeitcast. Flash and Javascript are the banes of my meager existence.
Comment by Justin — June 17, 2010 @ 1:54 pm
Same here, Justin. it starts buffering again at 33 sec. and can’t get past that no matter how often I restart.
Comment by Ardis E. Parshall — June 17, 2010 @ 2:29 pm
I had the same problem with the buffering on Firefox. It worked for me when I switched to another browser.
Excellent podcast Scott and Rusty.
Comment by Geoff J — June 17, 2010 @ 2:37 pm
Oh yeah. The obey Aaron t-shirt. I wanted one!
Comment by meems — June 17, 2010 @ 2:54 pm
meems,
You’ll get your chance yet.
Comment by Scott B. — June 17, 2010 @ 2:55 pm
Those having a problem with the audio player, I’m going to put an alternative player in the post now, so hopefully that will solve your problems.
Of course, I highly suggest just subscribing in iTunes here.
Comment by Scott B. — June 17, 2010 @ 2:57 pm
Okay, try the new player now.
Comment by Scott B. — June 17, 2010 @ 3:05 pm
I’m having a hard time believing that had the BofHers been able to reveal themselves in the end, it would have gone over better. How would this have worked?
I guess one thing is that the expose on 9M brought a lot of attention to the fiasco which enlarged the controversy as many people who never had much to do with BofH started chiming in and taking offense, but I’m still not sure the end result would have been different.
Comment by Tim J — June 17, 2010 @ 3:34 pm
Tim J,
You’re entirely correct about the attention–I just added an image I was saving for later which shows exactly how much extra attention the 9M fiasco brought.
Comment by Scott B. — June 17, 2010 @ 3:44 pm
Bless you, Scott.
I had the same problem with the buffering on Firefox. It worked for me when I switched to another browser.
Another reason to switch to Internet Explorer.
Comment by Justin — June 17, 2010 @ 4:14 pm
Given the documentary nature of this project I’ll add a bit to the timeline. Rusty emailed me suggesting the expose on 10/17/2005. This set off initial brainstorming and a series of discussions with other Mormon bloggers including DKL and Steve Evans!
Rusty wanted to include the snarker. As there was paranoia in the air he asked if I was the snarker. He had previously asked if I was in on BoH. Anyhow I knew (I have no recollection of how) that Kurt was the snarker and we invited him to participate as well.
I began to spend an inordinate amount of time researching all of this. I discovered there is indeed a toilet paper plant in Lewiston, ID. I also started looking up who had graduated from BYU in construction management.
On 10/20/2005 I discovered the embedded Duke atheltic department copyright in Aaron’s photo and shared this information with Steve and Rusty. To me that was solid proof that it was all fake. Once we posted that info on 9M “Sleuth” quickly found the real Aaron Fenton of the lacrosse team.
I am not sure when we figured out that Steve was in on it, but once we did I continued to partially update him on things without telling him that I knew about his role. At that point his attempts at misdirection became all the more hilarious.
I want to echo Rusty’s sentiment that we had no idea what the fallout was going to be. I certainly didn’t think that anyone beyond the handful of people that commented regularly on BoH would even pay attention. I’ll admit to being very shortsighted in that regard. We were just having a ton of fun putting clues together and organizing a posse.
Even if Rusty had decided to put the brakes on I don’t think there would have been any stopping Kurt. He was dead set on revealing them, which is a bit funny given that his identity as the snarker was a secret for a while.
Comment by a random John — June 17, 2010 @ 5:43 pm
arJ,
Spoiler!
Rusty has passed many of those emails on to me, and I’m going to post them at the end of the series in a great “Notes” post, along with lots and lots of other emails from the perpetrators. One of the big secrets people were going to be able to deduce from the to-be-posted emails was that you guys knew Steve was involved, and eventually Steve came to realize that you knew he was involved, etc…and yet it all continued for a while.
Hilarious. Sort of.
Comment by Scott B. — June 17, 2010 @ 5:50 pm
Nice intro music.
Comment by sister blah 2 — June 17, 2010 @ 6:45 pm
YAY! Someone finally noticed the awesomeness of my music selection.
Comment by Scott B. — June 17, 2010 @ 7:04 pm
The quote at the bottom of the Obey Aaron t-shirt: “Submit to the leaders, don’t think you’re special.”
Comment by Steve Evans — June 17, 2010 @ 11:23 pm
Finally! Someone remembers the quote! Awesome Steve.
Comment by Scott B. — June 17, 2010 @ 11:29 pm
Helluva podcast, guys. Rusty, you’re a prince.
Comment by Steve Evans — June 17, 2010 @ 11:29 pm
Great podcast! Loved hearing Rusty describe BoH from the outside.
Comment by DKL — June 18, 2010 @ 12:08 am
Before Rusty took it all the way, this sort of thing happenned a couple times earlier. On June 30, a month after Banner’s debut, Kent commented, “I think this whole blog is a satire,” and gave his reasons why. I decided to look up the alleged BYU alumni in the alumni directory and found none were listed. DKL and I exchanged several comments on why the blog was fake. Others joined in, and Septimus put up a post so much more bizarre than the previous ones that it looked like the curtain was coming down. Then, Steve Evans let us all know “I’ve met Jenn, if it helps,” and the show continued on.
In that exchange, I mentioned that the Banner of Heaven seems like the Phil Hendrie show, and DKL said Phil Hendrie sounded like a lot of fun, and he would do a blog like that if he had the time. That I would bother looking in the alumni directory, or that a random John and Rusty would spend their effort into establishing the site’s hoax status indicates that we were getting enjoyment of some kind out of it.
Comment by John Mansfield — June 18, 2010 @ 10:35 am
I agree with Tim J.
I don’t know that the fallout and aftermath would have been softened if Rusty’s troops hadn’t moved in.
The stories we had planned would have definitely been more dramatic, and built to conclusions, but exactly how we planned to end things was a matter of internal debate. I think some of us wanted to reveal our identities. I hoped to get away scott free. I figured the drama we had planned would serve as a more than credible reason for BoH’s demise.
The question is whether people would have cared enough at that point to investigate further. If we’d revealed our identities at the end I think we’d have been greeted with just as much dismay and anger, but without the efforts of Rusty and company, we wouldn’t have had as many readers, that’s for certain.
Comment by Brian G. — June 18, 2010 @ 2:04 pm
The series has been great so far. Thanks.
Comment by Edje Jeter — June 18, 2010 @ 2:27 pm
I loved the music as well. Awesome Scott.
Comment by MCQ — June 18, 2010 @ 5:06 pm
So your plan was going to end it all and then walk away? That would have been kind of odd.
Comment by Tim J — June 18, 2010 @ 7:18 pm
I was one who wanted to reveal identities. I was very proud of what we did, and I wanted to be able to take credit. I remain proud of it, and I’m pleased to stand judged and accountable for every aspect of my participation.
Comment by DKL — June 19, 2010 @ 6:02 pm
That said, it’s important to note that whatever decision we’d have reached about revealing identities was going to be reached by consensus, so that we were determined to act as a team. If I’d have been the odd man out in terms of my personal preference for revealing identities, I’d have gladly fallen into line with my fellow BoH bloggers. Such were the feelings of everyone involved, and there was never a possibility of a rogue BoH blogger.
Comment by DKL — June 19, 2010 @ 6:06 pm
DKL,
It sounds like you’d fit right in as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve!
Comment by Rusty — June 19, 2010 @ 8:42 pm
Rusty, Christ would let me be His special witness to save His life!
Comment by DKL — June 19, 2010 @ 9:05 pm
Oops, that should have been:
Rusty, Christ wouldn’t let me be His special witness to save His life!
Comment by DKL — June 19, 2010 @ 9:06 pm
Too late, DKL. We now know of your secret aspirations.
Comment by John C. — June 20, 2010 @ 9:32 am
I still own my shirt and wear it proudly.
Comment by Jeff G — June 21, 2010 @ 8:28 pm
It was a romantic notion. I wanted to fade away like Keyser Soze.
Plus, I was pretty sure people were going to be mad as hell.
Comment by Brian G. — June 22, 2010 @ 12:48 pm
Um, Brian, as your attorney, I advise you to shut up.
Comment by MCQ — June 23, 2010 @ 5:25 pm