Hi.
I'm Pablo Kickasso.
This is my blog.

1.05.2008

It Ain't So

I made a video revealing five "facts" about me.

They aren't true.

At all.

I do not have an ex-wife, I do not have a son, hell, as far as I know I have never gotten anybody pregnant.

But let me start at the beginning.

So this English guy called nerimon made a video starting a "Vlog Tag" chain in which you have to reveal five facts about yourself in a video and then "tag" five others to do the same. The five people he tagged tagged five others and the chain proceeded to take over THE ENTIRE INTERNET. At least that's what it seemed like. Every-friggin-body was tagging and being tagged. It wasn't long before I was tagged not once, but twice in the same day by both speedyconkiwi and Kimberleigh.

But Kim's video really got my attention. Her facts were as follows:

1. She owns every Britney Spears album.
2. She was in porn.
3. She taught herself to speak Klingon.
4. She recently got several genital piercings.
5. She was abducted by aliens.

I loved this video, because she did it completely straight-faced and peppered it with little facts that were actually true. (For instance she said she got interested in learning Klingon from people she played World of Warcraft with, which she actually did play) She totally had me going at first. "Omg, Kim was in porn???" If it hadn't been for the alien thing, I might have believed the whole thing. Kim, you magnificent bastard. So when she tagged me, I knew I wanted to do something in the same vein for my video.

However, it didn't really come off the way I'd intended. Only a couple people seem to have caught on, other than the people who know me, and know that I'd pull this kind of shit. I played the whole thing too serious, I think. I did try and give people the the hint by putting a card saying "04.01" behind me (as in 04/01, April first, April Fools Day?). I also put the video in the "comedy" category, put "aprilfools" in the tags and tried to drop some other clues along the way. Here's a breakdown of my five "facts":

1. I played rhythm guitar and sang backup vocals for a band called "The Fools"(April Fools anybody?) which had recorded an album called "The Joke's On You" (hint, hint). I showed some pictures of me playing guitar and singing, but these were actually pictures of me sitting in with a cover band called Crystal Spider that was playing a bar on my base in Korea in 2003 on a USO tour. I have been in a couple short-lived "bands" if you can call them that, but none that actually made it to the point of playing shows.

2. I was originally from West Philidelphia. Basically I just took the plot of the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme song and even lifted some stuff directly out of the song including: "West Philidelphia, born and raised" and "I got in one little fight and my mom got scared". In people's defense a number of people seem to have caught this one. For the record, I was born and raised in California, right here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

3. I was in the Army. Ok, this part was actually true, and I used all real info for it, but only because I thought it would help set up . . .

4. I knocked some chick up when I was as 18, got married and joined the army to be able to provide for my kid "Andy" (as in in Kaufman the renowned prankster/hoaxter/comedian) who was born in April (fools!) and that I had later gotten divorced. This is the part that everybody took REALLY seriously. I played it really vulnerable, even emotional, and probably stretched it out way too long. At the time I found the idea of committing to it that much hilarious, but there were were unintended consequenses.

5. I am the second coming of Jesus Christ. As I was planning out the video, this was supposed to be the "Aha!" moment when people would realize that the video was full of shit. Unfortunately, as Bryony told me later, "the jesus thing after it came off like 'heh, now I just exposed myself emotionally, im gonna be flippant'"

I posted it and it didn't take long for the shit to hit the proverbial fan. People started leaving me all kinds of supportive comments and even private messages about how what I'd done for my "son" was so great, or that my video touched them, or that they knew what I was going through, because they were in a similar situation. That's about the time I started to feel like a total jackass.

On the one hand, it was nice that there were were so many people out there who were so nice and supportive, but it started to feel less like a joke and almost like a betrayal of their trust or something. (Despite the fact that anyone who watches my videos on a regular basis ought to know better than to trust ANYTHING I say in them and just take it at face value)

But yeah.

It was all bullshit.

My bad.

3 offerings of praise:

Anonymous said...

seems like my brain is still working :D

Anonymous said...

Dude, it was so funny to look at it now, and to think we thought it was serious, but I did really wonder if it was for reals. And if me and Mark were wondering, and we know you for reals, it's no wonder!

Your 'clues' were SO cryptic!! haha, I love that the name of the kid was a 'clue'. Cause there's noone else called andy! hahahah

You have to make a vlog about this!

Anonymous said...

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

you fooled everyone you genius.

but yeh i only cottoned on because bryony's video uh- triggered some rational thinking or something. But even then i wasnt sure!

But yeh first time round you totally pulled at the old heartstrings. :'(((

and yeh like the papern00b said: the name andy is not a frigging 'clue'. WTF dude.

but yes /bow. That was uber.

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