Update: Previously cited angry letter not actual angry letter
A few months ago, I reported that a student at Brigham Young University had written a letter to the editor of the school paper in which he swiped a joke of mine that I’d used in a “Snide Remarks” column in that very paper several years earlier. In the course of telling you about this, I also quoted (and made fun of) a letter that someone had written in response to the first guy’s letter, offended by some other, non-stolen joke he had made.
Well, the writer of the second letter has written to tell me this:
I googled my name for fun and was surprised to see that I’ve become “famous” for my “angry letter” in the Daily Universe. I just wanted you to know that Jon Harmon [the guy who wrote the first letter] happens to be my roommate and he wrote his letter so he could get out of a final…and I wrote mine as a joke to see if it would get published…I guess I suceeded in my endevor to appear as a “typical angry BYU student.” Just thought you might want to know.
Hyrum Hemingway
Thanks, Hyrum! I do indeed want to know! I’m also curious what kind of final a student could “get out of” by writing a silly letter to the editor, but one thing at a time.
This whole situation is a reminder that just because we read something in a newspaper doesn’t necessarily mean it is true. Hyrum wrote a fake angry letter, the people who work at The Daily Universe took it to be sincere and printed it, and then readers like me believed it, too. Of course, the Universe prints so many actual angry letters from actual self-righteous people that you can’t really blame us for being taken in by this one. Hyrum did an admirable job duplicating the style of a pious letter, never going overboard or exaggerating the point too much.
As for why Jon Harmon stole my joke in the first place, thus setting the whole chain of events into motion, that remains a mystery.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
I don’t know…Hyrum Hemingway sounds like a totally fake name, made up just for this situation. Hyrum to make the point that he’s a Mormon, and thus establish his grounds for self-righteousness, and Hemingway to show he’s a writer.
Interesting, anyway.
June 13th, 2007 at 3:52 am
Who knows - perhaps the person who wrote to Eric claiming to be the author of the fake angry letter actually isn’t the author after all. It’s not like we have any way to verify it. Heck, he might not ever have even attended BYU, or had a roommate.
June 13th, 2007 at 5:18 am
He might not even be human!
June 13th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Maybe he’s a monkey!
June 13th, 2007 at 7:26 am
Come on, be realistic… he’s a flesh-eating alien robot!
June 13th, 2007 at 8:50 am
I attended Utah State University. A couple of years ago the school was going through it’s annual Gay Pride week. Naturally the letters to editor the the campus newspaper (The Statesman, or to the socially inept “The Paper”) were full of righteous indignation on both sides of the issue. One of the most talked about letters was from a student who wrote in about his feeling of being discriminated for being gay in Utah. He discussed how some of his class mates and teachers acted toward him. I’m sure the Statesman editors felt very “hip” and “with it” by publishing the letter.
The next week there was a latter apologizing for the previous letter. A guy wrote the letter as a joke and used his roommates name. His roommate did not appreciate the joke when he showed up to class and found out everybody was reading what he’d supposedly written.
The Statesman immediately began requiring student ID numbers and USU emails addresses so that all letters to the editor could be verified in the future.
June 13th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Here’s an eerie coincidence: on the same page that the letter by Jon Harmon appears (in the archives, anyway; I assume it appeared on the same day in the actual paper) there is also a letter from one Steve Marsden, who was Eric’s brother Jeff’s roommate a few years ago.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Humorously enough, I know Hyrum and was looking for the article in the Daily Universe. I had no idea he made such a stink that he would get a blog post.