Driving Kentuckians Crazy
One day in 2002 I was bored and wandered into an IRC chat room for Clay County, Kentucky, which happens to be the poorest county in the United States (four of the surrounding counties are in the top 10). I wound up staying for three years. I made some friends that I still have, and collected amsuing comments and insults and death threats that I still have as well. Pages and pages of threats, broken down by subcategory.
By 2004, the chat room scene was mostly killed off by MySpace, which was ok because the local police were kinda sorta on my trail at that point. However, when I chose this chat room at random and entered, I got into a fight with a guy named Bobby Ball almost immediately. Yeah, he's a real person, I just looked him up - it looks like he moved over to Booneville but ol' Bob is still around, as hot tempered as ever. After some online jawing back and forth, he wanted to meet that evening and settle our differences. I had never heard of Clay County, Kentucky before that evening, had no idea where it was, but I accepted his challenge. I quickly took a look at the local Chamber of Commerce page and the largest ad was for a place called Finley's Fun Center, a kids' skating ring next door in Laurel County, so I told him I would meet him behind Finley's in 20 minutes. He logged off and drove over there - me, being in New York and relatively conflict-averse in person anyway, did not show up at Finley's.
Over the next eight or so months, some friends and I flooded the chat room with comments and advertisements for Finley's Fun Center. Several times I posed as the owner and joined the chatroom to tell people that I had nothing to do with these shenanigans, but please come to Finley's anyway. We made offensive ads and we gave out the phone number for Finley's to young men all over the world looking for love. And in a hot-tempered community, the angrier people got, the funnier it was. And there are still people there who remember the saga of Finley's Fun Center, over 20 years later.
It all goes to show that the old saying about "repeat a lie enough and people will believe it" is only part of the story. Repeat *anything* enough and you can drive people crazy too.
Pardon the vulgarity below, but I saved several of my favorite comments from those long-ago days:
<BobbyBall> I'm gonna beat the next person who mentions Jackson
<BobbyBall> or Finleys Fucken Fun Center
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<Proud_Mary> oh please guys, not the Finley's deal again
<Proud_Mary> i beg you
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<_T|fFaNy_> justin..........did u quit finleys??
<project_8_6> not yet
<_T|fFaNy_> well .......when r u ?
<project_8_6> I dont know.....
<Jackson> Finley's?
<Cruc|f|Ct|on[IN]Space|busy> ahhh god
<Cruc|f|Ct|on[IN]Space|busy> you had to go and say finley's
<Cruc|f|Ct|on[IN]Space|busy> and get this guy started up again :/
<_T|fFaNy_> well..........
<Cruc|f|Ct|on[IN]Space|busy> he's quiet until you mention fucking finley's
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<CoWaFunGuS> the finley's shit was kinda funny at first..but goddamn..
<CoWaFunGuS> Jackson takes it way beyond the point of humor
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<R[evolution]> Jackson, you think i respect what you say? fuck no, you've talked about a goddamn roller rink all night
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<project_8_6> God please dont start on Finleys today