Spun off from the "Only Brown People Are Terrorists" thread:
Mm. Easiest thing might be for me to nip over to the Internet Archive
and find the block of text that was on the Greendale page for so long
afterwards.
Okay, here it is:
Michael Issikoff -- mentioned in the article the "Brown People" thread links to, and whom I commented on in that thread -- is the "Pulitzer-nominated writer" I mentioned above.
Oh, and the FBI did eventually come and talk with me. But it was years
later, and the two agents they sent told me flat out that I was an
incredibly low priority, basically a lead that had to be followed up
for completeness' sake rather than because it seemed credible. They
were also aware of and amused by this little note to journalists. When
I laid out a list of the sources for the various names and things in
the campaign (specifically, the name "Greendale" itself comes from the
movie Better Off Dead), and
made it pretty clear that the game had been defunct for a decade at the
time the attacks occurred, they were pretty much satisfied.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
M Fnord Wrote:Huh? I never mentioned that here? Wow.Quote:because of some coincidental parallels between my Teenagers from Outer Space campaign webpage and the anthrax attacksOkay, you're going to have to explain that one in greater detail.
Mm. Easiest thing might be for me to nip over to the Internet Archive
and find the block of text that was on the Greendale page for so long
afterwards.
Okay, here it is:
Quote:If You're A Journalist...
In the wake of the anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001, I've been contacted
by a number of journalists representing publications ranging from
little religious journals to Newsweek. Why? Because the bogus
return address for one of the anthrax letters included the phrase "Greendale
School". If you're a journalist and reading this page, you've probably done
what the others did -- plugged "Greendale" into Google or another search engine
and then decided I looked a lot more interesting than Greendale, WI or the
Greendale Elementary School in Abingdon, Virginia or the Greendale Stables
Horse Game.
Not a problem. It's your job to check out obscure leads and see if they
go anywhere. However...
Almost all of the reporters who have contacted me have been appallingly
ignorant of just what this page is about. As a result, they have asked me a
lot of questions that they could have answered for themselves by actually
browsing the text below, checking out a couple of the links, and (if
they wanted) reading a smattering of the game transcripts to see what
actually goes on. Most seem
to have merely glanced at this page, jumped to a wild conclusion, and then
decided to call me with vague accusations and insinuations. A few,
including a Pulitzer-nominated writer for a major national newsmagazine
(who really ought to know better) seemed bound and determined to
misunderstand anything I told them while at the same time fishing for
sensationalistic details (quote from said Pulitzer-nominated reporter:
"Who would the FBI subpoena if they wanted to find out more about who
played in your game?"). Some have been polite. But most have been insulting,
rude and accusatory.
I just wanted to tell you -- I'm perfectly willing to chat with any
journalist who wants to take the time to talk to me. But don't waste
my time. If you don't know what a roleplaying game (RPG) is,
find out. It's not that hard, we're mainstream enough these days
that one game got a (terribly bad) movie in 2000, and Hasbro owns one of
the bigger RPG publishers (Wizards of the Coast). If you can't understand how a game can be played
over a computer without it being a computer game, find out.
If the only reason you want to contact me is because this page has the
word "Greendale" on it, and you don't understand what it is we're doing,
perform some proper research before calling.
I've been a newspaper stringer in my time, and I have been
embarrassed on behalf of the journalistic trade by the combination of
pathetic ignorance and towering arrogance displayed by some of the
reporters who have contacted me. You wouldn't send as a correspondent
to Japan a bigot who's never seen an Asian person and can't speak
anything but English; don't do the functional equivalent with gamers
like myself. I'm not going to give you a grounding in the hobby,
and you shouldn't expect it, any more than you would expect an education
in the basics of football if you were interviewing an NFL coach for the
first time. That I don't feel inclined to spoon-feed you the research
you should have done before calling me may make me inconvenient to lazy
reporters, but it's only reasonable. You're calling me because of the
anthrax attacks, after all, not to learn how to play TFOS.
Although if you're seriously interested in learning the game, I
could certainly arrange something.
-- Bob Schroeck, 8 November 2001
Michael Issikoff -- mentioned in the article the "Brown People" thread links to, and whom I commented on in that thread -- is the "Pulitzer-nominated writer" I mentioned above.
Oh, and the FBI did eventually come and talk with me. But it was years
later, and the two agents they sent told me flat out that I was an
incredibly low priority, basically a lead that had to be followed up
for completeness' sake rather than because it seemed credible. They
were also aware of and amused by this little note to journalists. When
I laid out a list of the sources for the various names and things in
the campaign (specifically, the name "Greendale" itself comes from the
movie Better Off Dead), and
made it pretty clear that the game had been defunct for a decade at the
time the attacks occurred, they were pretty much satisfied.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
