The Anatomy Of A Fake Online Stalker

It started almost three years ago. At 8:49pm on June 12th, 2008 I announced to the world via this website, “Gail Simmons of Food & Wine Magaizne has alien eyes and a massive chest. She’s a full-grown woman, and looks like she could take a big dick.” It was an innocent-enough comment that was immediately lost among the flurry of updates I posted during the Top Chef season 4 finale. That was the first reference to Gail Simmons in the history of Swan Fungus. It wasn’t long after I typed that remark that I decided if every great writer needs a muse, I should make Gail Simmons mine. What’s that, you say? A muse isn’t a woman you practically stalk and speak of in only the vilest of vile manners? Yeah, well…good luck convincing drunk me three years ago of that.

If you asked me at the time where I thought my fake celebrity crush would take me, I would have never guessed it would end with being blocked on Twitter and worrying that my comments might affect the career of a friend who actually works on one of Gail’s television shows. So, it is with a very heavy heart — and quite a bit of relief — that I officially declare today the very last time I will mention her name on this website. It was really fun while it lasted, but every just like how every story has an ending every joke has a punchline, and this particular joke’s punchline isn’t very funny. Guys, I think I really scared the shit out of poor Gail Simmons.

So today I want to examine my behavior over the last 33 months and try to explain why I chose Gail as the object of my very artificial affection, what I hoped to achieve by doing this, and — should any of you attempt something similar in the future — how not to fake stalk a celebrity. Perhaps lifting the curtain and exposing myself (that sounds so wrong given the context of this blog post) as a fraud will both clear the air with Gail (by now we know she’s definitely seen this website or she would not have taken the effort to block me from ever interacting with her via social networking) and dissuade you from trying something similar. Be warned, readers. The line between fake stalking and real stalking is not very clear. I’m pretty sure I obliterated that line on multiple occasions. Don’t follow in my chalk residue-y footsteps. You know, because all lines are made of chalk and I just referenced stepping over the line — oh, nevermind.

I chose Gail Simmons as my celebrity crush because she was available, and because it was beneficial to my blog. After four seasons of Top Chef she was still not quite a household name. If I posted a story about her on my blog there was a really good chance it would crack Googles top search results, which rewarded me with a lot of web traffic. Even better for me, the more I spoke about her physical features, the more people visited the blog. On a given Wednesday (the day Top Chef airs) I could see a 50% increase or more in unique page views based on Google searches for some string of words involving Gail Simmons. You know how all those disgusting gossip rags sell based on whose cellulite or whose cleavage is on the cover? Gail was like that for me. So the more I played up my crush, the more I talked about her breasts, the more photos I found of her wearing low-cut dresses…the more popular I became, the higher my Google search results were ranked, and I made more advertising money. There was a time when you could literally just search Google for Gail Simmons — no quotation marks, no additional words or phrases necessary — and a Swan Fungus page would be the fourth or fifth highest ranked website across the entire Internet. Do you have any idea how crazy that is for a woman who appears on an Emmy-winning reality television show? That’s amazing! With that large of an audience, with that kind of forum in which to express myself, I had to push it to see how far I could go.

What did I hope to achieve by referencing Gail Simmons in 74 of my 2,358 blog posts? What was the purpose of dropping her name hundreds, maybe even thousands of times? Honestly? A simple “Hello” could have totally ended this whole thing a long time ago. When I realized that wasn’t going to happen — and especially when Top Chef and Gail’s career really started to take off — I thought I should push it even further. People I knew told me what I was saying could warrant a restraining order or a cease and desist notice. The FBI could show up at my doorstep. I responded by saying I would frame any legal papers I received. Rather than just forget about it and move on I thought it would be funnier if I upped the ante and pretended to go all out. It was all shtick, but I think I played the part of way-too-creepy, disgusting fan superbly. I’m even willing to admit that I fought with my girlfriend about things I’ve said or written about Gail Simmons. It was all part of my little game.

Which brings me to my main point: If you’re going to fake stalk a celebrity, don’t do what I did. There are better ways to get attention than trying to out-gross everybody else on the Internet. You can’t just say “I would let the terrorists win and I would go home to Gail Simmons Food & Wine Magazine and tag her entire body with my cum like inner-city black teenagers spray ridiculous designs on freeway overpasses.” That’s crossing a line. That’s not even funny. It’s just crass, and it sends an awful message to its intended target. Wait — maybe after the mass shooting in Arizona earlier this year I shouldn’t use the word “target” in a blog entry about stalking. Let me rephrase that: there are better ways to get noticed by the woman you’re pretending to be in love with. My problem is that I have a predilection for the vulgar word, and maybe if I’d just called her pretty and devoted blog space to my thoughts about her career and her style I might have succeeded in my goal. Ever the jokester, I took the route where I devoted blog space to Gail Simmons’ tits, posed questions about her ability to squirt, and wondered just how wet she became during foreplay. That’s not smart. I also wouldn’t suggest — were any of you planning to fake stalk a celebrity any time soon — constantly tweeting and retweeting, from multiple accounts about how you “haven’t jerked off all week in anticipation” of seeing the woman you [fake] desire on television. Try sending her flowers instead, or asking her legitimate questions on Twitter. When I say “her” I don’t mean Gail, of course. She’s been through enough the poor girl. Try it with someone else.

I really don’t know what the future holds for me as far as unreasonable celebrity crushes are concerned. I guess the best I can hope for is that next time around I’ll take it a little easier, you know? Whatever happens, whoever I chose to make my next object of desire, it’ll be totally different. I just hope it’s as much fun as the Gail Simmons era!