Last Will and Testament

(NOTE: Up until about two minutes ago, I still had strong yearnings to not do this. After reading the comments from the last article and the fairly childish argument that the recently-elected president at U4Prez was having with one of its most adolescent and, not coincidental, popular candidates, I am convinced I have to do this. Sorry, Wiz.)

Wherever you are, welcome. Call me X, a member of the U4Prez community, and once and for all, I am laying Olivia, a persona I had been developing for over a decade, to rest. Not to give too much away, but I know some at U4Prez would rather chase your tails over who Olivia really is instead of promote democracy or talk politics, so I will leave this a mystery for the elites to opine. I will say this, I am a male, which means when Copulate was coming onto me a few months ago, he was coming onto a dude. I still have his number, maybe I should test it. Also, when he is musing over whether Olivia takes it up the ass, he was verbally pleasuring himself over a man's hairy butt. Hey, U4Prez, you all decided THIS is what you wanted for conversation, instead of intelligence and integrity, you chose Copulate. Don't blame anyone but yourselves for letting him drag you to the gutter with him.

Instead of going on concerning the birth and development of Olivia, or any sort of apologies for creating her and making her an apparently believable hoax, let me jump right into it with bullet points.

For instance, I am terminating Olivia, not because she was found out, but because maintaining her as a viable entity is taking much of my time and energy. There are always individuals who suspected she was a fraud, but over time I’ve learned all sorts of Jedi mind tricks to make such individuals fade in their desire to pursue the matter further. My own persistence kept her going, and as such I’ve learned anyone who suspected her to be false better have more than a suspicion, or else I would run them around in circles. At U4Prez, I have every reason to believe I could have maintained Olivia indefinitely, no matter the amount of heat taken, even if the villagers had taken up torches and pitchforks and stormed the countryside.

Why now? Because I let it slip. Going back and forth from Olivia to X, I ended up with X’s profile and Olivia speaking. It was a slip certainly someone must have picked up, though at this writing it appears no one did. Maybe the slip was accidental, but I’m more inclined to believe it was subconscious, that I slipped in order to force myself into this. Perhaps this was my subconscience’s was of telling me, it’s time to end this. So I ended up sabotaging her, hence sabotaging X, my own very real campaign based on myself. By destroying them both, it takes me away from U4Prez altogether, neat and clean, snip snip, it’s done.

In other words, this is my choice. It’s not because anyone found me out, no one cornered me. No one corners Olivia. She may have her haters, but as I said, she fights the good fight. Any criticism brought up is nothing we haven’t heard in the past. As much as I want to stick around and continue to fight the good fight, even with Demo’s latest proposal, I’m not falling for it. This fight was already fought, Copulate lost, and goading me into more of it is proof that they are losers who would rather use the U4Prez world as their ‘hood, extending fights they lost a long time ago because apparently that’s all U4Prez is to them. If that’s all this is to you guys, go for it. Even as a whore and a self-exposed hoax, Olivia has more integrity than that.

Demo made an ultimatum to Olivia last night, to confront Copulate about something he chickened out of twice previously. I was starting to set up a show on BlogTalkRadio, and I would read all this out loud, and send Olivia out with a bang. I woke up this morning, thinking how a show would go. But I realized, this is all pretty stupid. Copulate is too chickenshit to stand up to me, so he gets Demo to do it? Apparently Olivia is somehow a coward because she stood up to Copulate, watch him vacillate all over himself TWICE, and she has enough sense to let him just twist in the wind? Copulate had his chance, and like a punk who gets his ass handed to him, he jumps up after the fact and starts talking shit again. Anyone who supports him, quite frankly, is condoning this kind of behavior and is an accomplice. I mean this. The best way to shut Copulate up is to withdraw your support. Judging by his rating, it’s apparent the U4Prez community would rather vote for a shittalking backstabber than for someone of quality, someone with no virtue except being obnoxious instead of someone with integrity, someone who can debates like a freeper in the worst sense than someone who debates with professionalism. There are 800 Republicans on the board, and U4Prez thinks he’s one of the best? Maybe Olivia picked a good time to jump off the wagon, if THIS is their concept of a solid candidate.

This is what would have happened. Olivia would have blown them off, per usual. Copulate, with renewed keyboard courage, would have talked shit, because that’s all he has to offer, everyone who knows that’s all he does will have said, yeah, whatever, and life would have resumed, Olivia unscathed. Olivia has dealt with nine months of negativity, what's a few days more?

And after I dismantled Demo, Copulate, and the latest swarm of thugs, what’s next? There’s always going to be a new set of goons. Last year it was the Hard Right. Now it’s this nameless gang of thugs, I was going to call them the Saggy Middle in honor of BigDaddy. In a couple of months, I take on a new gang, and another one, always victorious, always at the top of the hill, but this game takes a lot of time and energy I no longer have the ability to maintain. Lord knows I want to, but I am pulling this plug and sending Olivia to her death, because, at the end of the day, it’s all dust in the wind. I feel for the next candidate they try to burn in effigy. But I have to do this. As entertaining it is to watch a prostitute run circles around the U4Prez elite, this has to stop, with Olivia on top, once and for all, no more fecal matter slung, no more endless extensions of an argument that was stupid in the first place. If the candidates at U4Prez can’t look at the record for themselves, there’s not much more anyone could do, vocal or otherwise.

The hope was actually to dissolve Olivia, and by the time she faded, X would be up and running and with a degree of gravitas. It was working—within a week X was getting into conversations and debates and even calling in on talk shows. I was thinking about putting together my own show, do a few videos, and pretty much have X in a great position to take over when Olivia’s plug was pulled.

Oh, well.

Originally, I actually wanted to leave in August for good, when you all watched Olivia flame out. When that happened, and I presented Kiss & Tell, I was convinced, after two or three angry posts, I would be ignored, and that would be that. I had no idea Eric Gurr would be scolded by his corporate masters, that the “Hard Right” would buckle and break up and become dust, that the blog would become such a part of U4Prez, and that Olivia would gain just as large a status being a disgruntled bitch as a candidate.

Again, I pulled the plug in September, thinking I would never come back, and I stayed away from the place, thinking six weeks of cold turkey would cure me. But I peeked back in, guilty of curiosity, and before I knew it, Olivia was back in, with apparently only BigDaddy giving her a hard time. Faustus won the presidency, but I thoroughly believe, had Olivia come back two weeks before, putting together a strenuous and vocal campaign, she would have won as a write-in. Or at least better than Musicman.

At U4Prez I realized two things. First, Olivia was taken seriously, and though I could keep the charade up for as long as I wanted to, the fact that she was so welcome therein was shocking. And second, there were limits to what she could do, even though she made every effort to overcome those limits. The fact that a candidate who never spoke a word could create such bedlam at a place where the spoken word was becoming more and more important truly surprised me. I’m sure I could have found someone to play Olivia’s voice, and thereby keeping the hoax going. But there was never a need for Olivia to be heard. Through today, there is still no need for Olivia to be audibly heard in order for her to have merit.

The slip, whether anyone caught it or not, is evidence that I need to end this, this is ridiculous. I probably could have glossed over it, I don’t know who noticed, but I did, and that was enough.

The smartest candidate ever at U4Prez was Catbus, not just because he is a liberal genius who truly cared about people, and not because he put conservatives to shame with fact instead of conjecture, but because he knew how engrossing this is. To put up with the abuse any liberal takes from conservatives on a message board is bad enough, especially when you don’t make a dime from it. But to get so deep into it that it consumes you, that’s something else. After a couple months, he realized it was sucking his time up, so he left, a quick paragraph on his profile, and never came back.

I’m not going to sit here and say GOTCHA. Every one bought her. I know BigDaddy and Copulate and many others are going to say they were onto this all along. But all of you bought the hoax, every one of you. There may be one or two who suspected here and there, but no great push was made to ever expose the hoax.

As much as some might want me to apologize, quite frankly, the only one I should apologize to is TheWiz. For the most part, Olivia was met with a great deal of respect from many, but more than any other candidate, Olivia absorbed a lot of abuse, and I defy anyone to name me a candidate who took as much as her. From day one she was scorned for her profession by such paragons of virtue as Hawk. Her “honesty” concerning abortion, something you don’t ever see on a board like this, was met with the kind of stone-throwing that would make a right-to-lifer picketing a Planned Parenthood proud. Anything she revealed about herself was used against her. More than any other candidate, what she allegedly did off U4Prez was made front-page news here, and not all of it was to her liking. What other candidate here had her MySpace rummaged for quotes? What other candidate had nearly TWENTY negative videos made about her? What other candidate received sexual slurs like she did? You all said things to her you know damn well you would never say in public, I guess the keyboard courage was running high with you all. I am so thoroughly impressed with just how crude, annoying, disrespectful, and downright thuggish many of you can be. I listened sometimes to the talk shows, for as much trash talk you throw around therein, you all are downright gentlemanly there compared to the boards at U4Prez.

Before you start with, we never did that, well, yes, you did. You, collectively. There were many individuals who were kind and intelligent and even professional. But there were many more who would say the meanest fucking things they could think of, and they would say them to her, I can only fathom why. Keyboard courage, I guess. As the internet allows me to create an identity out of the ether, so it also allows others to let their inhibitions run wild. Freud and Jung would have a field day on a message board.

Olivia is no victim, hell no. She gave far better than she got. She never started an argument, but she finished them all. She kicked ass and took names. She put herself on the line a lot, and in most cases she was chastised for it in the present, but in time many saw what she was trying to do. She forced you to have an opinion of her, and from my point of view, Olivia was applauded just as much as she was demonized.

There were a few of you she would considered friend, and I welcomed the chance to phase Olivia out and install X and get you to know me instead of her. It’s far easier to befriend someone who looks like Olivia. No one claims to be superficial until a pretty face comes along. It was strange to have kt2020 greet X as a newbie, when Olivia had known her since March. Some admitted having crushes on Olivia, and it was strange talking to them, knowing this. In my warped mind, Olivia and I are separate people, so the pronoun I gets bandied around a lot in my head. For those who respected Olivia, I was very jealous and wanted to be respected just as easily.

How much of me is in Olivia? My belief that democracy is more than just counting votes is part. The idea that American politics had gotten adolescent and that partisan politics borders the absurd, that’s something we shared. The sense of activism, Olivia’s starting petitions and organizations and blogs and the Constitution, that’s something I wish I could do more often, and I’m jealous that she did. Disappointment that more people weren’t as eager to participate in anything other than partisan bickering. The belief that one person indeed could make a difference. That U4Prez is a microcosm of American democracy. These are all things Olivia stood for, in her words and deeds, that come from my own heart. In time, X would have taken this mantle over, but since both are dead, we mourn instead of continue.

I still maintain that U4Prez was a microcosm for American democracy. Was. I believe too many candidates really bought into the bad argument that Eric Gurr’s precious rights of ownership were being taken away by the candidates, and truly, there is a mechanism for producing such change. That change is the implementation of the kind of democracy liberals have praised and conservatives have railed against for years. By applying pressure to Gurr in his wallet, the candidates could—and still can—truly instill change within U4Prez. This is his baby, his million-dollar idea, but it’s like a football game, people come either to play or to watch those playing, no one comes to see the referees, or in this case, the moderators. The candidates were always the attraction, and if enough key candidates quit and encouraged others to do the same, U4Prez would slowly die. Going back to the bad business argument many made, you can have your little business, but if you have no customers because you insist on selling crap and refuse to listen to them when they complain, why bother?

U4Prez could have championed American democracy. Instead, it is a haven for the very worst American politics has to offer.

Eric Gurr knew this all along, that a few candidates were more important than others. Olivia was perfect in feeding this belief in him. Beautiful, cheeky, from a dark background, yet articulate, bright, and with a seemingly firm grasp on politics, she was his wet dream, figuratively speaking (I have to put a disclaimer like "figuratively speaking" in there, because BigDaddy doesn't know what it means to be tongue-in-cheek. You listen to him, you may actually think I said Gurr and Kempite were on a couch somewhere). Using Jedi mindtricks, I was able to keep him believing in Olivia, even when she wouldn’t return his calls. Yes, he did give his number, and regardless of his motives, it was to promote her over the rest.

As much as I believe the microcosm theory, I don’t know if I truly learned anything about American politics. If U4Prez is a parallel to the real thing, then we’re fucked as a country. Faustus put it best, in his 17-plus years in politics, U4Prez was the most brutal experience of his career. U4Prez is full of petty people who would love to be taken seriously, and they found a forum which rewards the lowest common denominator. The loser with nothing better to do, who spends 20 hours a day on that site, gets further than someone who is thoughtful and engaging and has things like a family and a job to attend to. Unless you are part of the entrenched elite, there is little chance of you getting anywhere. And unless you are a backstabbing shittalker, don’t expect to be noticed.

If this is a microcosm, then this much is true about American politics. It is far easier to be loyal to something than to be honest about it. Candidates don’t want their leaders to be honest, they merely want their side to win. Voters would rather be with a winner than vote for the best candidate possible. The left and the right not only need to find common ground, they can. The real threat to American politics does not come from the left or the right, but from those who would drive wedges between the two in the name of partisan allegiance. All candidates, real or simulated, talk in soundbites and talking points, not facts. To conservatives, the world began in 1970; to liberals, in 1932.

As to U4Prez itself, it’s a million-dollar idea run by an apathetic idiot. Gurr has no idea what kind of fortune has been plopped in his lap. Instead of trying to cash in as soon as possible, as he did last year, he needs to perfect his product. He had barely a thousand profiles last year when he started talking about reality TV. He needs to work on the step ahead of him before he starts the next. And he needs to LISTEN to those who are in the system. Any good businessman listens to his customers, and one would consider the rather childish claim many made concerning the Constitution, that it’s Eric’s toy and we should butt out, bad business.

Don’t let U4Prez turn into an elitist site. It’s already very cliquish, and many own up to this. You who have been there for a while, you have no idea the harm you’re doing to the place. You have already chased off probably hundreds of candidates who saw Copulate’s antics, or Olivia’s responses, or BigDaddy’s thuggish exploits, or the Hard Right’s gang politics, and said to themselves, this is not worth the aggravation.

Copulate is just cruel, and I started pushing Olivia away from him ever since the Hedrick thing, because he was a bastard and had nothing to offer except being a bastard. BigDaddy is actually an intelligent candidate, as I’ve heard him on the talk shows, he’s thoughtful and much more civilized. He doesn’t translate it very well to a message board, and that’s his biggest problem. But since the U4Prez world has expanded to include things like blogs and talk shows and videos, he fits in better. Olivia was too proud to ever let up on him. Me, I think he needs to stop playing GOTCHA games just to do it, because if he himself just opened up and stopped the bullshit, he could be a real contender. Instead, he is a clown, mostly because he doesn’t take himself serious enough.

U4Prez has some real problems. Copulate claims to have 41 profiles, which is more than 1% of all profiles ever created, and Gurr doesn’t lift a finger? There are fraudulent candidates left and right, everyone knows it, and those who have them don’t deny having them. The elite candidates are currently benefiting from a system that produces the same schedule every week, OF COURSE they’re going to defend it, they are benefiting from it. Healthy skepticism always takes a back seat to personal privilege. Change can only knock them off their cushy pedestals. It’s oligarchy.

I was thinking about exposing every dirty secret I knew, but that’s spite, and Olivia isn’t leaving because she was thrown out. There’s no reason to be angry. It was a slip. There is no resentment on our part, despite the very graphic things she dealt with. There is no one left to GET. No one ever GOT Olivia in any GOTCHA, although some will try to say otherwise, don’t believe them. It’s a trick. No one made me quit. I slipped, I did it, I am quitting because of my own doing.

Here are a few holes for the filling, though:

Chelsea was Smashey.

Bluproject and Olivia made up, and she hasn’t talked to him since.

Kempite, just before she left in August, apologized to Olivia, and it sounded more like a deathbed confession than an apology. That was when he and Copulate were at it over a PM concerning him having AIDS. He said he loved Olivia, to which she replied, in typical Olivia fashion, thanks, but you’re still a jerk.

Olivia was never any other candidate, despite the many conspiracy theories that circulated. She was not White Rose. She was not TheWiz. She did have an umbrella of profiles that everyone knew about, like the Antipartisan Pledge and the Women’s Leagues, but in terms of parading around in a profile disguise, no, Olivia never did that, and no, I didn’t, either. Actually, I take that back, I ran the Archie B. profile, which several candidates already know, just as they must know other celebrity profiles are false. Anyway, the point is, there are no surprises in this regard.

I truly believed the fix was in, and the fact that Kiss & Tell took off as it did, and that people reacted and moved in ways, was evidence there was something fishy going on.

If the Constitution failed, it would have been alright by me. This is democracy. U4Prez, not U4Copulate or U4Olivia. However, had more shenanigans taken place like last year (and this week’s runoff schedule certainly doesn’t help matters, being recycled from last week’s list), I would have led a revolt. Several candidates quit U4Prez in August because they had enough of the place and followed my lead. Had we all returned to the same crap, I would have become to this democracy what Gandhi was to India—a nonviolent pain in the ass. Don’t ever underestimate the power one single person has in a civilized society. I would have organized boycotts, walk-outs, or mass resignations. And they would have worked, because unlike those who strictly believe a business is a piece of property that’s apparently fixed and unmoving, Gurr knows a business is much more, and it needs the energy of users to keep it going. No, no one had a gun to make the moderators do anything, but we certainly could lay a case where it would be in their best interest to do so. Olivia said it before, if Gurr wants a site with just BigDaddy, Copulate, and a bunch of newbies quitting, keep picking mediocrity over sanity. Right now, there is little mobility between the newbies and the elite, and there are NO middle classes therein. That makes U4Prez ripe to become a true oligarchy, or worse. Gurr is parading democracy as a commodity at U4Prez, but his apathy is letting it become a wasteland for the few. The Constitution may be a lot of things, but it was an expression of democratic distillations. I wish it was seen as more than a sandcastle for a couple of thugs to kick over.

But, life is what you make of it, right? If you want U4Prez to be a vibrant society, it will be that way. If you want it to be a band of thugs, like it was in 2007, keep doing what you’re doing. Those who thought they were defending Gurr’s property rights, I feel, are going to kill U4Prez in the long run.

Wiz, you are going to take the a lot of heat for this, and I am very sorry for doing this to you. Everyone else could take or leave Olivia, but you were her fiercest defender, her most loyal combatant, and her best friend at U4Prez. I wish there were something I could say that could keep the dogs off of you, but there isn’t. I hope they show a little compassion and realize they were duped just as you were, and in that, it won’t be so bad. Reality, though, tells my otherwise. Take this any way you wish, but at U4Prez, there was not a more honest soul, a more genuine candidate, than you. You and Olivia brought U4Prez to its knees, you made all the big boys here wet their pants, and you had fun doing it, not through cruelty like Copulate or bloviating like BigDaddy or shaking babies and kissing hands like Faustus or trying to be perfect like Kempite. You were your own man, and as far as I can tell, you are the only truly unique candidate there. Everyone else is a copy of an archetype. Wiz is the everyman, tired, drunk, wanting to shout down the powers that be but never quite doing it, finding a way to stick it to them without being a jerk about it. I wish Olivia could call you, but she can’t. And I am very sorry for that. A lot of people loved Olivia and will be disappointed, but you were more, and I’m sorry Olivia couldn’t give you more than she did. More than anyone else, you deserved a voice to go along with your commitment to her. Not Copulate, not Al, not Bluproject, not Erock, not any of the many who loved her and who she called friend. You were Olivia’s best friend. Singularly. And to you alone, I apologize. I’m so sorry.

I will not be back to U4Prez, I might just peek in to see who is doing what, but I won’t participate, so you need not worry if that new candidate who has good grammar and a slight temper is really Olivia. Depending on your point of view, one of U4Prez’s shining lights or biggest assholes is now gone. I know she had an impact. You can’t tell me otherwise. After a lot of shit talk about her, she will fade and die. This blog will be terminated before January 1, her MySpace is already dismantled, as is her U4Prez profile. Her email will remain. This is closure for me, something I didn’t give Olivia in the past. This article is a good catharsis, to get the last of her out of me. I am sure you think the absolute worst of me, and that’s fine, I didn’t give you much of a chance to get to know me, so I refuse to take much of the criticism personally. I’m sure I’m considered little more than a virtual-reality drag queen at this point. Whatever. I do hope, though, that Olivia is remembered for what she brought to the U4Prez world, truly, of all her incarnations, this was her finest hour.

Love, Olivia & X. XXX