Idaho holds the esteemed honor of being the only state named through a hoax.
The story starts in 1860, when a new territory around Pikes Peak was being proposed to Congress. A goofball delegate and mining lobbyist, George M. Willing, presented the name Idaho, claiming it derived from a Shoshone phrase, E Dah Hoe, meaning “gem of the mountains.”73 The people of the region enjoyed the lyrical word, and it was almost accepted. At the last moment, rumor spread that Idaho was not actually a Native American term, so the region was instead incorporated as the Colorado Territory.
But the word had struck a chord. To the north, steamboats and mines started to use the name Idaho. Soon there was a whole county in the Washington Territory using the name, which in 1863 became the Idaho Territory.
The fabrication long forgotten, Idaho, a nonsense word, became a state in 1890.
SEE ALSO: ESQUIVALIENCE; GERRYMANDERING; GRUNGE SPEAK; NONCE WORD; TRAP STREETS
To gain entry into this compendium, a book has probably fucked up in some monstrous way. Most likely, it is a hoax, or an egregious act of plagiarism, or some woefully inept work of history. If I Did It (2007) is none of these things, but it might be the most audacious act of misinformation ever published.
More than a decade after O. J. Simpson was acquitted for murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, the case remained prominent in the public mind. Certain unsavory characters (aka “people who live in Los Angeles”) saw economic opportunity in this untapped fame, but it was an odd sort of renown to cash in on. O. J. had already taken a stab at reality programming, with a 2003 pay-per-view hidden camera show. Juiced, as it was actually called, included an incendiary sketch in which Simpson tries to hock his disgraced white Ford Bronco to a used car lot. “It was good for me,” he tells the salesman. “It helped me get away.”
Finally, someone—specifically known rabblerouser Judith Regan, who ran an imprint of HarperCollins (owned by News Corp)—came up with the ingenious idea to have Simpson write a memoir. But not just any memoir—a memoir that hypothesized how he would have committed the murder had he done it. The plan was to promote the book—shamelessly titled If I Did It—with a two-part television special featuring an interview with O. J. on FOX (also owned by News Corp).
Naturally, the public—as well as the families of the victims—freaked out. In a tempest of backlash, the book was yanked before it could even hit shelves. Rupert Murdoch himself issued an apology, calling it “an ill-considered project.” After 450,000 print copies were destroyed, the book predictably leaked onto internet torrent sites.
Around the same time, the family of Ron Goldman won a $33 million civil case against Simpson. The settlement handed over rights of the unpublished book to the family, who decided to publish it with a new subtitle, Confessions of the Killer, plus some added commentary from the family. The redesigned book jacket shrunk the IF to tiny letters, so the title seemed to read simply I DID IT. Even though he is the author, O. J.’s name and image appear nowhere on the cover.
Reading the book is a mind-boggling experience. For several chapters, it plods along like an almost normal memoir. O. J. feigns introspection and mounts a case against Nicole as a slutty cokehead who slept with his BFF, Marcus Allen. Finally comes the chapter “The Night in Question,” where he shifts voice and says:
Now picture this—and keep in mind, this is hypothetical:
From there, O. J. asks you to pretend, while he delivers gruesome details about killing Nicole and the man he believed to be her lover. After the reconstruction of the double homicide, he returns to normal memoir voice, finishing with details about his notorious arrest.
There is no section of the bookstore for “Hypothetical True Crime Memoir,” but if there were, If I Did It would line the shelves.
SEE ALSO: ALT-HISTORY; CHEWBACCA DEFENSE; FANFIC; GENOVESE, KITTY; RASHOMON EFFECT; RETCONNING; UNRELIABLE NARRATOR; WORK OF FICTION DISCLAIMER
Pick a number. Wait—pick a prime number. Write it down. Did your prime number happen to begin with 485650 . . . and continue for 1,401 digits? If it did, then you possess a forbidden number.
Illegal prime numbers are exactly what they sound like—indivisible digits that are unlawful to own or transmit. The most notorious example is the number used in DVD players to decrypt encoded movies. When this prime (the one with the 1,401 digits) was divulged online in 2001, a judge ruled its ownership illegal. The ruling inspired some ridiculous litigation, including the MPAA suing a manufacturer that printed the number on a T-shirt.
Because they are rare and difficult to calculate, prime numbers are particularly useful in encryption schemes. The possession of one becoming a crime may seem preposterous, but the incident suggests other rousing questions related to technology and ownership. [1] Is computer code free speech? [2] Can you trademark a color? [3] Is the human genome code copyrightable? These legal quandaries are trying to keep apace with technology.74
No one has been jailed for possession of a prime, but history is riddled with cases of forbidden numbers causing persecution. Legend has it the Pythagoreans killed to keep the diabolical a2 secret. The digits 666 are still revered by some Satanists and even more anti-satanic crusaders. Skyscrapers often still omit the 13TH FLOOR. And the date 6/4/89 has been banned from web searches in China because of its association with the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
SEE ALSO: 13TH FLOOR; 555-2368; INFINITE MONKEY THEOREM; STEGANOGRAPHY; STREISAND EFFECT
Do you suffer from a nagging feeling that—in your professional career—you are a fraud, a sham, a phony baloney? That you don’t deserve your success? That your achievements have accrued from a wondrous streak of luck? If so, it’s possible you suffer from an affliction known as impostor syndrome. It’s also possible you are simply humble. Difficult to know! (Don’t fret. If this were a science fiction movie, the discomfiting feeling would suggest you are an unwitting CYBORG.)
Impostor syndrome is the inability to recognize your own accomplishments. The concept was forged by clinical psychologists in the late ‘70s. When studies initially indicated it was more prevalent among high-achieving women, the condition was embraced by feminists as a partial explanation for the workplace parity gap. More research in the ‘90s suggested the self-esteem gap might be gender neutral, and perhaps even a majority of employees from all backgrounds suffer from some form of workplace impostorism.
The Wikipedia entry for impostor syndrome claims that its sufferers include Tom Hanks, Chuck Lorre, Neil Gaiman, John Green, Sheryl Sandberg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Emma Watson. So basically, a lot of very different people think of themselves as fraudulent.
SEE ALSO: CAPGRAS DELUSION; COTARD DELUSION; FREGOLI DELUSION; GASLIGHTING; PHANTOM LIMBS; VIRTUE SIGNALING; VOIGHTKAMPFF MACHINE
The infinite monkey theorem encompasses a well-trodden thought experiment: An unwitting ape is trapped in a room for infinity, tap-tap-tapping random keys on a typewriter. Eveeeeeeeentualllllly, due to the laws of probability, this pitiable simian will accidently type out the collected works of Shakespeare. The hypothesis is being diligently tested on Twitter right now.
The theorem of infinite monkeys has intellectual appeal, plus mathematical validity, yet it remains pragmatically impossible. Probabilistically, even if the number of monkeys equaled the atoms in the universe (around 1080), and all those atomic monkeys typed extremely fast (say, one hundred characters per second), and they did so for a long time (the life of the universe multiplied by, hmmmm, a billion), they would still (probably!) not replicate even a single page of Hamlet. Whatever book this monkey tapped out on his Remington, it would never even remotely fit in the known universe.
But that is the actuarial response of a dull logician. Somewhere behind page 53.8 × 1091 of this hypothetical monkey book lies a more elegant appeal: an allegory about humanity. The monkey theorem is a method for contemplating existence in the face of randomness. However improbable, the indelible image of a monkey at a typewriter reconstitutes infinity as a tractable concept, more pliable than a sterile ∞ on a chalkboard. Only we humans—the most advanced primates—can distinguish data from information; only we can see order in the deluge. The monkey parable is silly but somehow soothing.
For these reasons, the literary establishment adores the infinite monkey theorem. Borges used it to great effect in “The Library of Babel,” and everyone from Dilbert to the New Yorker has propped a primate up to an IBM Selectric. A monkey at a typewriter evokes the dumb randomness of literary invention: Great works are found, not created. (For this reason, literary agents are particularly enchanted.) Somewhere deep in the random monkey garble, this encyclopedia exists, an accident of time and space. In the face of such fuzzy uncertainty, the monkey reminds us of what Polonius told Hamlet, “To thine ownself be wQldze;rv!XssspL.”
SEE ALSO: ILLEGAL PRIME NUMBER; PASCAL’S WAGER; SHIP OF THESEUS; STEGANOGRAPHY; TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN
If you wanted to disguise a stealth BLACK PROPAGANDA operation, you might give it an inconspicuous moniker like Internet Research Agency. Perhaps that explains the innocuous naming of IRA, a shady Russian tech firm that creates online disinformation for the Kremlin. Effectively Vladimir Putin’s troll farm, the IRA employs a cadre of irritants who write bogus blog posts, distribute divisive comments on news websites (including Fox News, HuffPost, Politico, and the New York Times), and amplify dissentious memes on social media, especially Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.
The enterprise started in 2013 with the stated goal of promoting oligarch-friendly domestic policy, but after successful propaganda campaigns in Ukraine, IRA reoriented toward media manipulation in the United States. During the 2016 presidential campaign, the agency employed 90 people to create divisive internet propaganda in support of candidate Donald Trump. In total, the Kremlin funneled at least $2.3 million to IRA to influence the election, including the purchase of Facebook ads that bolstered thousands of acrimonious posts. (Showing no distinction between virtual and real-world ASTROTURFING, the troll farm also mounted a ground campaign, paying 100 activists to organize 40 rallies across the United States.)
Though renowned for invigorating the alt-right with rhetoric on issues like Texan independence and immigration, IRA has also boosted leftist messages from groups including Black Lives Matter. The alliance might seem counterintuitive, especially given Putin’s atrocious human rights record, but targeting far-left slogans to certain regions can polarize the electorate, creating dissension that destabilizes the public. The goal of propaganda is exposed: not to influence policy but to cultivate rancor and turmoil. Discord is the cash crop of the griefers on the troll farm.
SEE ALSO: ASTROTURFING; FALSE FLAG OPERATION; INTERNET TROLL; SOCK PUPPET
The role of an internet troll was once succinctly defined. Trolls performed specific tasks, with specific goals. A troll was an irritant, a nuisance, a rabble-rouser.
A proper act of trolling went like this: You would enter an internet community, drop an incendiary remark, provoke an overreaction from the in-group, and sit back and LOLOLOL as members squawked and howled at your impudence. An intrepid internet troll might, for example, saunter into a Beanie Baby message board, proclaim the plush dolls a PONZI SCHEME built upon mounds of legume rubbish, and then watch reactionary soccer moms caterwaul like banshees yanked from their Chardonnay.75
Trolls produced flamebait (acrimonious remarks that encourage rebuttal, also known as shitposts), which would irritate community members, but these rascals were otherwise harmless. When asked why they enjoyed sowing discord, the response was a typical non sequitur: “For the lulz.” They were just rickrolling their way toward perverse laughter.
An implicit tenet of this worldview is that the troll does not (necessarily) believe their own rhetoric. Trolls exist to challenge outdated doctrine, but they have no fixed ideology, unless chaos is ideological. A troll might provoke ire in a Planned Parenthood forum not because he (with near invariability, a troll is a “he”) is even against women’s rights. Trolls privilege aesthetics over ethics, style over manners. Spawning outrage is a sport. Or, when perfectly executed, an art. As with a masterful painting, the reaction a troll elicits from the audience matters more than the artist, or even the artwork.
But this narrow definition of the troll as a pesky prankster has passed. Trolling now connotes a much larger category of actions, both more harmless and more heinous. On the benign side, trolling has become a synonym for taunting. Loudmouths now “troll” politicians with snarky tweets. NFL quarterbacks “troll” their opponents in the endzone. TV shows “troll” their audiences with surprise twists. You can “troll” your mom with hilarious emojis. If an action elicits a reaction, it is now a troll. And on the internet, pretty much everything elicits a reaction.
The semantic territory of trolling has also expanded in the opposite direction, toward the demonic. Bombarding the internet with hate speech now falls in the same impish category as subtweeting your boss—it’s all trolling. The cretins who commit revenge porn on ex-girlfriends are able to dilute the severity of their crimes by depicting their acts as “just trolling.” Broadening the category of trolling to include simple harassment has lessened the depravity of their malevolent acts. These numbskulls do not deserve the title of troll. They should be called what they are—sadists.
SEE ALSO: CATFISH; CONCERN TROLLING; THE REALIST
73 Willing was not only a goofball but also a self-promoting braggart who may have later exaggerated his involvement. Regardless, the word Idaho is fabricated.
74 Current legal answers to those questions: [1] Still debated. [2] Yes; e.g. Tiffany Blue, John Deere Green, Cadbury Purple, and Coke Red. [3] No, phew.
75 Comparing soccer moms to banshees is a fine example of shabby trolling. Don’t feed the trolls, moms.