Taken with an Apple iPhone
The Internet Celebrity Fairy bops about the web, granting with a wave of her wand a flood of traffic, parodies and meme status. After a short time, she moves on to someone else, never to return, leaving a whiff of former Internet glory. No one checks in on Peter Pan, or the Numa Numa kid, or the two Chinese boys anymore, but they can always say, "I was that guy."
It figures that I'd be anonymous when the Fairy visited me.
At the end of April, a throng of Internet fans picked apart this picture of me, looking for any details they could find and discuss. Why? Because the metadata in the photo named the camera that took it: an Apple iPhone. As of today, that's no big deal. Six weeks ago, when a dedicated blogger hit pay dirt by searching for "Taken with an Apple iPhone", it was the centerpiece of frantic forum chatter.
Nothing teaches you to distrust Internet chatterboxes like reading their speculation on a subject of which you have intimate knowledge. Theories flew like birds. The photo was a fake. (Sorry, Gizmodo, you were wrong; but thanks for the "hair as silken as an Arabian stallion's mane" comment.) The photo was part of a viral marketing campaign. (Don't you think they would have staged a better photo?) The photographer was due for the chopping block. (Thankfully, no.) The person in the photo, "Toast Guy," was none other than Richard D. James. (Uh, no.) Toast Guy was the photographer. (I'm still trying to figure out the anatomy one would need for that.) Toast Guy didn't know how to spread jam. (Hey!) Toast Guy was a run-of-the-mill dork. (Hey! Whom are you calling run-of-the-mill?) Toast Guy had an awesome Legend of Zelda hoodie. (He does.)
And oddest of all: Toast Guy was a woman, and an ugly one to boot. I blinked the first time I saw it, but my gender was as much a topic as the photo's source. I've got a ponytail, but it's also clear I haven't shaved in a couple of days. Just a note for any who were confused: Men can grow their hair long, too.
I read it all silently and laughed at the wackiness. I learned that I gave a talk at WWDC on Dashboard a couple years back. (Why can't I figure out the problem with my widget, then?) I learned that I was married to the photographer (I swear, Melissa, we're just friends), who was clearly the woman in the other photograph (she's not). Some people pieced together the details, but by then the furor had died down, and either way I wasn't going to comment. A co-worker joked that he would make up all sorts of lies about me if I didn't tell him the truth; I challenged him to do worse than the other commenters.
The truth is so banal it was funny. A few units were given to team members for real-world testing. My friend had one of those units, and she was told to use it as her normal phone. She took a picture of me with it and uploaded it to Flickr, where it showed up on that search. I wish I could spin some exciting story of corporate intrigue, but I can't.
There is a moral, though: The ability to post on a forum about a secret topic does not make someone an expert. Quite the opposite, in many cases.
Do you want to know some iPhone secrets? Well, tell me if you know any, because I sure don't. Our friend couldn't show it off or demo the phone. She couldn't mention anything that wasn't mentioned in the keynote. She couldn't let us touch it or take a picture of it. It's exciting when you first learn that your friend has the world's coolest product about two months before anyone else, but when you can't really see it or play with it, you quickly move on to just hanging out with her and discussing what an ugly woman you make.
So I can always say, "I was that guy" (yes, a guy) but after today you'll find . . . Wait, Internet Celebrity Fairy! Come back! What if I make up something else? Wait!
