Chicago Portrait no. 7
He called himself “Smichaels” because Facebook wouldn’t let him name himself $Michael$. He created an artificial corporation called MichaelNet, produced a LinkedIn page for it, named himself the CEO and CFO, made regular newspost updates, invited everyone to “like” and “follow” them, and left his own review. He requested investments from anybody who’d listen, he printed business cards, he read business and entrepreneurship books, he posted at least one news article to the MichaelNet page everyday, typically a puff piece about dogs or robots, always with the same comment -- “This truly speaks to the playfulness of humanity!”
When I first met him, we were both sitting around a campfire. I was talking to the Director of a nonprofit, sort of angling for a part-time data analysis job. I said a few veiled things about my statistical expertise. The Director was interested, but wasn’t sure when she’d need me.
But Smichaels caught wind and took a seat beside me. “I hear you know a lot about statistical analysis,” he said in a tone that might as well have been verbal Comic Sans. “What do you know about factor analysis?”
I had just started working on a big factor analytic project. I described it to him in non-jargony language as much as possible, but whenever a technical term fell out of my mouth -- latent variable, phi matrix -- he’d nod vigorously and make an enthusiastic, bro-ish kind of “huhyEAH” kinda sound. When I finished he nodded some more and said, “Oh yeah cool, but what about qualitative analysis?” And then I answered. And so on.
He told me in a flurry of incomprehensible business speak jargonese that he was seeking a program evaluation consultant and data scientist for expanding the analytical possibilities of his diversified, horizontally and vertically integrated investment structure. By then I’d figured the game out. I agreed with enthusiasm. I said, “Oh sure, it’s important to embed data scientifics at all stages of the management team.” I had taken a fucking Industrial Organizational Psychology course. I knew the lingo. I knew the deal.
Soon I was the latest not-so-ironic ironic fan of the MichaelNet Corporation’s page. I gave it five stars. I checked in. The sheer doofy absurdity of the guy’s life had me enthralled. I got to talking with his friends, who all rolled their eyes and backed away from him as he bounced on his heels and talked about his desire to blend MichaelNet with a nonprofit artistic organization he had created, something involving puppets. How could they not find this shit hilarious?
He’s been doing this for a year, someone said. I looked again at the Facebook page. She’d given the organization one star. “The Worst”, was all her review said.
Another guy took me aside and said, “The thing about Michael is, if anyone else was doing this it would be an elaborate schtick. But the thing with him that is so endearing is that it is all, completely who he is. That’s who he is. He’s just like that.”
I see Smichaels a few times every couple of months, at shows and bars and campfires. Have seen him intermittently like this for a couple of years. And like they said, he’s always like that. Reading up on transhumanist technologies, tick bites, puppet creation, investment strategies. Growing out a mustache as long as possible. Posting images of inventions, human interest pieces, and Skymall trinkets to a MichaelNet Pinterest board entitled “Speaks to Me”. Talking up MichaelNet to strangers, bartenders, acquaintances’ spouses, and me. Trying to demonstrate in meaningless words that their profit margins are rising, their investors are sated, their team is fully integrated, they have a bright future, it is your moment to get on board; confusing everyone who doesn’t realize it’s not real, was never real, is a joke, but also isn’t a joke. And I am the only person who has never, not ever, gotten tired of it.