Fake Steve Jobs unmasked?

“Could Fake Steve Jobs be, in real life, Andy Ihnatko?” asks Philip Elmer-DeWitt for Business 2.0.

“Ihnatko, for those who don’t read his tech reviews in the Chicago Sun Times or his back-page humor columns for MacWorld, is a self-described ‘Boston-based geek and writer who works for anyone foolish enough to pay him.’ He’s written for everybody from Playboy to Roger Ebert (who credits him as writing at least a third of Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary),” Elmer-DeWitt writes.

“You don’t have to read much of YellowText (‘The weblog of Andy Ihnatko! Possibly not the least-beloved technology pundit in the land!’) or his Colossal Waste of Bandwidth site (tag line: ”Better’ is the enemy of ‘good’ –Voltaire, I think, or, umm, somebody’) to see the similarity,” Elmer-DeWitt writes.

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “oh my” for the heads up.]
We’ve been seeing Andy and his trademark hat at Macworld Expos since forever. He’s as good a guess as any (but, better than most.)

Andy Ihnatko’s Colossal Waste of Bandwidth’s YellowText: http://www.cwob.com/yellowtext/

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/

56 Comments

  1. I figure Ihnatko is prolly the brains behind MDN, too. Did you see the gory-ass iPhone parody video he posted today? Fits right in with all the blood-letting victory metaphors in this place.

    Just kidding. Hey, I like reading FSJ. Usually. Except when he bums me out. ahaha. ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />

  2. a lot of us REALLY don’t want to know… this should have been a “think before you click item”.

    Fake Steve has waaaaay too much style and talent… making it likely he’s a writer and that there are a ton of breadcrumbs out there to follow (I find it unlikely you can write that well AND adopt a completely unrecognizeable style.)

    But it’s going to be a real buzzkill. And we should great those who are working to out him like the police breaking up the best party of the year, because exactly one neighbor complained. Which is exactly what they’re doing.

  3. Steve Jobs? Who cares. He got the idea for the Apple II from Bill Gates in the ’70’s and has been poorly rehashing Microsoft’s innovations ever since. I can’t believe anyone would waste their time writing a fake diary for someone so uninteresting.

    What I think we all want to read is the secret diary of Steve Ballmer. In real life he’s an enigma; in fake diary form he would be even more fascinating. What makes the remarkable Steve Ballmer tick? That’s the real question on everyone’s mind.

    Your potential. Our passion.™

  4. Love them both, whoever they are. ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />

    Side note – What the hell ever happened to Jack Miller?

    And who is SteveJack, REALLY?

    And what about Scarecrows brain?

  5. The Trolll is back in town! the Troll is back in town! ( sung to the tune of “The boy’s are back in town”)

    Where are the Catcher’s…….Send in the catcher’s………to catch all the Troll’s….(sung to the tune of “Send in the Clown’s”)

  6. Congratulations. You’ve helped t unmask him – now, can you drop it?

    I find it amazing how so many people claim to like reading FSJ yet want to “unmask” him, knowing full well that the very unmasking will *stop* the person who is FSJ from continuing.

    Are you people *really* that thickheaded? What’s wrong with simply leaving FSJ be? I think a lot of it is jealousy – FSJ is funny, popular and original and a lot of so-called “journalists” are none of the above so they want to cut him down to *their* level.

  7. He has not been unmasked unless Ihnatko admits it. We all know Bill Gates really is the FSJ. His protest at ATD ’07 was a little too quick, don’t you think?

    But I’m not giong to claim it’s so, because if it is Bill Gates, this will be his single greatest contribution to the culture.

    Now, I have to go shine my head.

    FSK it…

  8. @ FSK Use wire wool gauge number ’00’ It will guarantee you the finest shine because it will remove .001mm off your scalp while at the same time ingraining the polish to the same depth! A lasting shine with a ping factor you will achieve!

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