I recognize that I harmed this community and I want to take responsibility for that and apologize to it collectively. It’s a resilient place that I’m sure can withstand the harm that I’ve caused and heal itself and move on, but it’s resiliency isn’t in any way an excuse for what I’ve done, which has been a huge error in judgment on my part and was wrong.
They say you hurt the ones you love and I think it’s true. When I stumbled across the bloggernaccle, as we call it, about a year a go I fell in love with it and I wanted to contribute to it and be a bigger part of it. I imagine a lot of people have felt that way when they first discovered it and that’s why it’s a place that has grown. I think for people that are lawyers, economists, literary critics, and other intellectuals it’s a place that is easier to contribute to than for people like me. I’m a hack writer.
Kaimi knows I work in reality TV and compared this blog to the worst shows that genre has to offer. I don’t really think that’s a fair comparison, but I can see why he feels that way. Many of us enjoy blogging to escape the unsatisfying drudgery of our daily work and to momentarily be a version of what we really want to be, but aren’t, or aspire to be, but haven’t achieved yet. Lawyers stop reviewing documents to share dazzling and insightful arguments. Professors stop grading papers to share the answer to a big question they’ve discovered. Stay-at-home moms put the kids down to nap and go tackle a thorny doctrinal issue. I’m a storyteller. I wanted to do the same sort of thing, escape the world I work in which I don’t always care for, and tell a good story, one about the culture I know and love, one about redemption. I wanted to show what I can do and tell a story like I never get to tell to a unique audience I thought might appreciate it.
It was a simple and pure desire at first and I want you all to know I recognize that it got corrupted along the way. I recognize that my pride and ambition and desire for attention blinded my better judgment, things escalated, and people were hurt by my words. I think a lot of people in the bloggernaccle community have had the same thing happen to them, but only on a much smaller scale in the daily heated exchanges on threads everywhere. Obviously, what I’ve done is far worse, but that’s why I can only ask for a far greater gift of understanding and forgiveness.
*****
Naomi quoted what I thought our goals should be over on T&S. It was never intended to be the cruel prank so many people feel it has been. In retrospect we should have explicitly said it was fiction from the start, but I felt that no one would interact with us at all beyond giving us faint praise, or not-so-faint criticism if we did that. In fact, the reaction to nearly all my posts as Septimus, especially recently, appeared to me as if people were reacting to my work with full knowledge that it was fictional in precisely the way I was afraid they would if we didn’t do something a little different. From the start, I didn’t think we would be good enough writers to fool many people for long at all, but I thought if we created a semblance of reality then people would get hooked on our stories and remain interested.
Clearly, I’m a moron, but I thought that was what happened. After the first month we were constantly being called fake and it’s been fairly consistent since then. Early on Kaimi linked to one of my posts, saying we “jumped the shark.” I was pretty sure the post where Sep blacks out in his backyard blew the lid off any illusion that Sep was a real person and since then on nearly every post I wrote as Septimus people have said it was fictional in one way or another. This in no way mitigates the damage I’ve done to this community or the pain I’ve caused certain people, but I want to explain why from my perspective it seemed much more like an open secret that everyone who had invested much time at all in our blog was just playing along with and not a cruel insider’s prank.
*****
Many of the people who have expressed the most outrage over our blog have admitted to not liking it, and not having read much of it, and not being very invested or interested in it. Still I think they have every right to be upset on behalf of the people that were invested in it and feel hurt, and on behalf of the community at large. I understand the desire to protect and defend a community that you helped build.
We had a community of our own at the Banner and the people who were part of it know who they are. Thank you for participating, commenting, reading, and collaborating along with us. I felt at the very best most rewarding moments that we were telling stories together. I feel like many of you found a place where you could speak more freely and more openly and be a bit more real, and not be intimidated. I think a lot of people had fun, actually. However, I realize now more of you feel genuinely betrayed than I thought. I want to apologize to as many of you as I can. If you have been silent and don’t want to admit you were hurt in public, please contact me privately to express your anger. I will do my best to apologize. My email address is brianngibson at gmail dot com.
*****
Kaimi, Bryce, Geoff J, and Kristen J, I believe you’ve all expressed regret in one way or another about not standing up and saying it was fake earlier, and I can understand how this has led to guilt and other conflicted feelings. I apologize for being partly responsible for that.
Rosalynde, I’m sorry that I used our friendship to briefly involve you in this blog and I hope your credibility remains intact. Everyone should know that Rosalynde’s involvement was minimal and always against her better judgment. I’m not a good influence on her I am afraid. Rosalynde, I’m sorry I got your little sister involved too. I feel like I owe the entire Frandsen family an apology for tainting their good name. I’m afraid if I go to the Miller-Eccles Group to hear Richard Bushman your dad will kick my butt.
I want to apologize to Steve Evans for coming to him with this idea. He put a lot more relationships at risk than I did and everyone should know that I deserve a lot more of the condemnation than he does and has already received.
I want to apologize to Rusty’s posse, Ned, Random, Kurt, John Mansfield and any others if they bear me any ill will. We were clearly outgunned. I think you guys enjoyed hunting us down and I think we enjoyed being hunted, until of course, we were backed into a corner of the OK Corral and filled full of lead, but we deserved it.
I want to apologize to John Mansfield for impersonating the Hulk and Yoda. I want everyone to know that the Hulk and Yoda are actually fictional just like Septimus.
I want to apologize to DKL for apologizing to so many people; I know he wouldn’t like it.
I want to apologize to Aaron Brown for all the many times he was accused of being involved. I want everyone to know he had absolutely not a single thing to do with this ever at any time. We wouldn’t even let him guest blog. Even fake blogs have standards.
I want to apologize to Aaron Fenton; if I ever see him in real life I will surely crap my pants.
*****
I want to end on a serious note and sincerely apologize to the people that I believe I know have been hurt.
I am truly sorry Sue, meems, Howie, Bananas, measure, Stephen M, Blain and others I am sure. Again, if you’ve been hurt by my actions, please demand an apology from me in public or in private.
Finally, most of all, more than all these other apologies, I want to apologize again to Annegb who taught me an invaluable lesson in forgiveness earlier today when I apologized to her in private, and I would like my apology to stand for all other people who like her may have believed in spite of it all.
Anne, you have a special gift for believing and I am ashamed that I took advantage of it. Please don’t feel ashamed of the ease with which you believe in other people and care about them. Thinking you might feel that way makes me sick. I know I put you in a position where you might feel that way and what I did was wrong, but please know it’s a good believer like you that makes the best member of any audience, or a church, or a community. There’s never any shame in believing. It’s what makes you a wonderful, compassionate person. Thank you for forgiving me.
Sincerely,
Brian