A subreddit dedicated to the unresolved mysteries of the world. Submissions should outline a mystery and provide a link to a more detailed review of the case such as a Wiki article or news report. Replies analysing and speculating over the mystery and possible explanations are encouraged. -
Intro: Andrew W.K. burst onto the music scene in 2001 with the release of a party-rock album called I Get Wet. The singer, who was (allegedly—and I’ll be using that word a lot in this writeup) born Andrew Wilkes-Kriner in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the son of a staid and well-known legal scholar, had previously released two “dumb but fun” EPs called “Girls Own Juice” and “Party Till You Puke”. Obviously Andrew didn’t take after his dad too much. Andrew W.K. became a big star in the UK and Japan, and joined Ozzy Osbourne’s Ozzfest tour in the US to rave reviews. In 2003 he released a more restrained second album, The Wolf, to slightly less enthusiastic but still positive press. W.K. followed up the album with an extensive worldwide tour and one of the first large-scale internet presences by a musician.
Things start to get weird: In November 2004, a mysterious figure named Steev Mike allegedly posted a threatening message on Andrew W.K.’s website, claiming that he’d hacked into the site to let W.K.’s fans know he was…well, nobody’s quite sure exactly what he was really claiming. The message darkly hinted that Steev Mike had “created” Andrew W.K.’s music and said that his fans deserved to know the truth about their “relationship”. Within minutes the message disappeared from the site, replaced by a rambling letter from Andrew W.K. which cleared up nothing: Andrew begged his fans “PLEASE DON’T BELIEVE STEEV MIKE. I USED TO CALL MYSELF STEEV MIKE A LONG TIME AGO AND IT’S NOTHING NOW” (his caps) but then a couple sentences later stated “[s]omeone is pretending to be me and this Steev Mike guy.” Andrew later claimed that Steev Mike had served as “Executive Producer and Creative Director” for I Get Wet—although that name had not appeared on the album—and clarified that although he used to call himself “Steev Mike”, he and Steev Mike were in fact two different people.
Andrew W.K. had always dabbled in identity switches and near-hoaxes. One of the reasons I Get Wet made headlines in the UK was because of a rumor that the album and Andrew W.K. himself were a hoax devised by former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters lead signer Dave Grohl. While that wasn’t true, Andrew W.K. claimed to be friends with Grohl and used that relationship for further leverage. Later there was a rumor that songwriter Diane Warren had used Andrew to serve as a frontman for her music projects. Still later there was an even crazier rumor that Andrew W.K. was in fact….Tom Cruise!
A weirder identity crisis came soon after the website “hack”. In December 2004 Andrew W.K. played a show in Elizabeth, NJ which was cut short allegedly for running over curfew. Almost immediately rumors started spreading that the singer at the show was not Andrew W.K. but an impostor. A couple of days later, Andrew W.K.’s “webmaster” Kristine Williams addressed the rumor, but never really answered it…instead, she posted enigmatic statements like “as Andrew himself has stated, he will always be there, you just might not see him” and “accept (what happened at the concert) is and enjoy yourself.”
Around the same time, Andrew W.K. started putting cryptic messages on his website. Literally. He typed them in to a simple numeric code (A=1, B=2, etc.). Occasionally he’d use 55 (“EE”) as short hand for the mysterious Steev Mike.
Steev ups the ante: Between 2005 and 2006 Andrew W.K. was working on an album called Close Calls With Brick Walls, which promised to be a return to the I Get Wet era. Shortly before the release date, though, Andrew claimed that “an old friend” of his was in financial trouble and was “taking it out” on him by claiming the rights to his image and basically suing him for use of his own name. You guessed it—the “old friend” was Steev Mike. For some reason, Steev had not sued Andrew in Japan, which allowed Close Calls to get a limited release there. Instead of touring behind the album, Andrew reinvented himself as a “party philosopher”, getting widespread media coverage as a motivational speaker and something of a party impresario. Andrew also released an album of piano instrumentals called “55 Cadillac” (there's that "55" again...) under his own Skyscraper Music Maker label in 2009.
Around this time Andrew W.K.’s website was getting weirder and weirder. Some of the images (some NSFW) can be found on http://awilkeskrier.homestead.com/ curated by “Ward”, as the original Andrew W.K website is now gone. When pressed about these disturbing images, Andrew’s management team claimed that the site had been hacked by, yup, Steev Mike. A site called “AndrewWKSucks.com” appeared in 2005, also allegedly created by Steev Mike…but when Ward did a whois search on the site’s address, he found the website was owned by “Andrew W.K., Inc.”!
Steev calls a truce: In 2010, Andrew W.K. told a music magazine that the legal issues with Steev Mike were settled, and that Close Calls With Brick Walls would finally be getting a worldwide release. Strangely, Steev dropped all his claims against Andrew's image and name in exchange for Andrew changing the name of his record label from Skyscraper to Steev Mike Music.
And with that, Steev Mike sort of disappeared. Once in a while in the past nine years Andrew W.K. has made references to Steev in music videos and in interviews, but once the lawsuit—if there ever really was a lawsuit—was dropped, Steev dropped from sight too.
Now I’ve written a lot here, but believe me, what I’ve written is nowhere near the bottom of the Andrew W.K./Steev Mike rabbit hole. There used to be dozens of websites poring over “clues” like random pictures and Photoshops from the old Andrew W.K. website. The Homestead.com website and the Stereogum site I’ve linked below have links to a couple of them, but a lot of them are unfortunately dead. And there are about as many theories as to who Steev Mike is as there were websites. Three of the theories seem to be credible:
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Steev Mike was a business rival or other enemy of Andrew W.K., who hacked his website and sued him for financial gain.
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Steev Mike was a real person who helped out with Andrew W.K.’s early career but then got cut out of The Wolf album. Brought back to produce Close Calls With Brick Walls, Steev got revenge by sabotaging the album and suing Andrew for name and image rights. The Homestead webmaster favors this theory.
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There is no Steev Mike, and any reference to him is Andrew W.K. being psychotic/trying to drum up publicity/playing a cosmic joke on his audience. The Stereogum article author, Michael Nelson, believes it’s the latter—and he also thinks that “webmaster” Kristine Williams, an accounting firm named Padell, Nadell, Fine, Weinberger & Co., and several “anonymous” blog and web posts are also Andrew W.K. himself. In fact, Nelson believes that Andrew W.K. is the “Ward” behind the Homestead.com site!
I think Michael Nelson might be on the right track, although I’m not sure I buy that all those blog posts are actually him, and I can’t imagine Andrew W.K. spending the hours and hours it must have taken to create the Homestead.com site, come up with all the weird images that were put on his own website, etc. The big question is…why? Why would you create a “rival” who then “prevents” you from releasing what could have been a very lucrative album in the US and the UK?
I’ll leave the rest to you…I honestly can’t take all of it in. Enter the Steev Mike rabbit hole if you dare….
https://www.stereogum.com/2015589/andrew-wk-steev-mike/franchises/sounding-board/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_W.K.
http://awilkeskrier.homestead.com/ (Warning—contains NSFW images)
Nice try, Steev/Andrew/Ward/Diane/Kristine/Dave Grohl.
How do I know you're not Andrew W.K. too? Checkmate!
Pfffft. Like I could keep white pants clean...
This is an excellent writeup btw, thanks for putting it together and making it so easy to follow (a challenge, I’m sure!)
I love all the ridiculousness surrounding the Andrew W.K. legends/“mysteries” and can’t wait to melt my brain even more with yet another internet rabbit hole about the walking fucking fever dream that is A.W.K.
His pants aren't clean. If they were, would it be a party
Have you seen Andrew W.K.? I love the guy, but he always looks like he needs a bath. :)
On reddit, everyone is
a botAndrew WK except you.Well, for one, he's not partying at ALL
It’s been Milo all along!
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
Edit crap had to look up lyrics.
This is a line from an Andrew WK song? Because there is an episode of the X-Files with a very similar line ("I am he and he is me and we are all together"). It's from an episode called "Eve" in the first season, which would predate the song (Also where the band "Eve 6" got its name)
Goo goo g'joob.
Okay, but are you also the Egg Man?
Take this upvote. I give it freely.
It's from I Am The Walrus by the Beatles.
I figured it was from something else. Thanks :)
The song lyrics you're quoting are from "I Am The Walrus" by The Beatles (not just lines from the X Files).
It just seemed a bit appropriate. Nothing specific to what you’re looking for. Sorry for any confusion.
Sounds like something Andrew W.K. would say...
Got em
You're the only one here who isn't a bot.
We ALL are Andew W. K. Gooble gobble, we accept her, one of us!
I think it's most likely the third option.
I think it was all him, or some one helping him create a story. For those of is that chose to follow it. I think it's fiction to help give his persona something deeper than just 'party rock dude'.
He's very intelligent, and I've actually seen him do his motivational speaking which was very uplifting, actually.
He's pretty weird as well, so I wouldn't put it past him to make something like this.
He can also be really kind/generous. A young guy at one of his shows in Houston had his expensive DSLR camera stolen. Andrew WK had been hanging out with fans, heard about it, disappeared for a minute and came back with some cash, several hundred dollars, which he gave to the kid to buy a new one. Wasn’t a publicity thing, didn’t do it or talk about it on stage, just wanted to help the guy out.
And that young photographer? You guessed it, Steev Mike
Edit: everything up until that last line is actually true. Never really been a fan of his musically but am a fan of the way he treats folks
That is so thoughtful. There are so many famous dudes who are like, "Yuck. Fans are gross." There is just something about AWK that makes me feel like there really is hope. There really is a time to just party our lady bits/nuts off.
I've never heard too much of his music, but his Twitter was strangely uplifting back when I was still on Twitter. Seemed like a strange dude, but also very positive, which hey we need more of in the world, so good for him.
This. I can very easily see Andrew doing the original Steev Mike hoax for publicity, and then just going with it once he realised it was more popular than intended. He's highly intelligent and introspective, but he's also really eccentric.
I mean, we're referring to a dude who refers to basically everything as "party", performed at the gathering of the juggalos despite the entire audience throwing beer bottles and literal trash at him to try and get him of the stage, who also performed at a My Little Pony convention, and smashed his face into a brick to break his nose so he'd get a "more realistic" nosebleed for the album cover of I Get Wet.
His “how to get over a devastating breakup” advice column helped me a lot. He’s a really smart, thoughtful guy.
Back a bunch of years ago, before the Wolf album, he played at a local bar with Danko Jones. He seems like a genuine kind of guy, after the concert he was out in the bar with the masses, drinking and signing autographs while Danko Jones was back in the green room partying on their own.
I followed his music a lot, and a lot of the shenanigans that happened around this, and I really think it's the latter. This Steev Mike is a persona of Andrew WK that he uses to drum up publicity.
Yeah, I call that level of intelligence "whip smart" – so smart it hurts.
Yeah, an intentional ARG type thing feels right, but maybe he didn’t plan a way to resolve it in a satisfying way.
Though, if it were me, I’d be pretty satisfied if people were still trying to figure it out years later.
(I saved Sara)
I like stuff like this, something a little more light hearted than most of the posts on there, but till a little mystery.
I would say the 3rd solution is the most likely, but to what reason? Publicity? Some sort of psychological issue? Or just for the fun of it?
Yes - I'm also thrilled to see an unresolved mystery that doesn't include police, forensic science, a van and/or nipple clamps.
See Jamie Starr, The Time, and Prince. This is all definitely a publicity stunt - exposed as soon as you find out who owns the shitty web site.
Could you give a TLDR of Prince/Jamie Starr please?
One or two albums prior to 1999 (the album, not the year), critics began saying Prince wasn't black enough, (he'd started adding new wave tunes, hard rock tunes). Prince created another band, The Time, to prove (to whom?) that he was black enough. Citing Jamie Starr (instead of Prince) as the producer on several of those projects. It was actually Prince writing/performing/producing all the instruments and then having a different singer, (Morris Day) re-do the vocals.
And then he did the same thing with Vanity 6, and then a third time with Sheila E, and finally Appolonia 6 which came out alongside Purple Rain.
On the album 1999, you can hear Prince say "Jamie Starr's a thief" and "it's time to fix your clock" on the song DMSR; trying to throw off the whispers that Prince was masterminding several bands while also releasing one of the biggest crossover hits of the 80's, (Little Red Corvette, and then the entire album Purple Rain).
I don't even know when exactly it was confirmed that it was Prince; it's common knowledge now, and if you listen to tracks from those albums, you can hear Prince's backing vocals on songs like Cool and Wild and Loose, (the Time), The Glamorous Life (Sheila E) hell - there's a song on that record, "Shortberry Strawcake" that if you play backwards, it's obvious that it's Prince. (I'm not ENTIRELY sure if Prince or Jamie Starr was credited on that album, so that part could be wrong).
Sorry for such a long post - Prince is one of my favorite artists; especially those years (the 80s) when he wrote so many songs he had no choice but to put them out on other ppl's albums.
Lastly - my high school years were a blur, (79-83) so it's very possible I got some of those records out of order.
Edit: link with discography. https://www.discogs.com/artist/160852-Jamie-Starr
I agree with you that these kinds of mysteries are very interesting.
In this case, my theory is that it was a mix of publicity stunt for him with a bit of performance art thrown in. Artists displaying multiple personalities for different works is common. There is the whole thing about supposedly other people taking his place and playing as him in concerts, which could a veiled criticism against manufactured artists by the music industry.
Regarding option 3, I don't understand how "He couldn't have done it alone" is supposed to be a counterargument, he probably had a team working online for him. In the 2000s, there were already bands involved in elaborated marketing strategies online, even Nine Inch Nails had a Alternate Reality Game that was a mystery for a while, with USB pens with clues found in the bathroom of their concert venues.
Oh come on dude I was about to go to fucking bed
I’d never heard of this. Super interesting. So in 2008, AWK did a “stream-of-consciousness” style speech where he said the following:
“[I] want to confess something to all of you:
I’m actually not Andrew W.K.
I’m not. I’m not the same guy that you may have seen from the I Get Wet album … I’m not that same person. And I don’t just mean that in a philosophical or conceptual way — it’s not the same person at all. Do I look the same as that person?
What I mean is that since that time, I have changed, and for any of you that happened to be there during that time, perhaps you have changed as well. And I would like to think that we’re not the same people at all — and again, not just conceptually, but very literally, we’re not the same. I’m a completely different entity. Not to discredit what I’ve done before, or what Andrew W.K. has done before, whoever that person was … And so I’m here in that spirit, and I think that freedom is sort of hand in hand with idea of joy, and songs like “Party Hard” that Andrew W.K. has done, songs like “I Get Wet” or “Party ‘Til You Puke” or “Totally Stupid” or whatever songs, that have appealed to you, that Andrew W.K. has presented — I’m here in the name of that joy, but I’m not Andrew W.K. as far as that goes …
Andrew W.K. was created by a large group of people. They met, and I was there, and we talked about how we could come up with something that would move people. It was done in the spirit of commerce. It was done in the spirit of entertainment, which usually goes hand in hand with commerce. I was auditioned, along side many other people, to fill this role of a “great frontman,” “a great performer.” On the one hand it may be a little scary to admit this to you all, that I may not be exactly who you thought I was, and that the guy who was, in fact, first hired as Andrew W.K. is a different person than the guy sitting here on the stage tonight. I’m the next person who is playing Andrew W.K …”
Then he made a post on his website about the far-fetched accusations of his fans (that didn’t really address anything directly) and then made a video called “I AM A REAL PERSON” (that also didn’t help).
He is full of non-sequiturs and contradictions. It has to be him behind all the personas, but the real mystery is whether it’s deliberate, like a publicity stunt or social experiment, or if it’s due to mental illness. The writing and speech style in his posts and interviews seems to have patterns of disordered thought.
Also, another mystery is why the Guardian didn’t edit out the unsourced rumours about AWK’s identity from their albums reviews. Like, where did the Dave Grohl thing even come from? (AWK, I guess.)
the idea that there are different people playing the role of andrew w.k. sounds even more like something he’d make up for publicity than the steev mike stuff.
I don't care if this is just an elaborate hoax/publicity stunt/troll job, this is incredibly fascinating. I kind of hope Andrew WK's behind everything because that would make it sillier
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If you see him live (which you should), he's one of those people where he just looks different depending on the angle, his expression, etc., almost like an optical illusion. He'll go from "pretty Andrew WK" to "jacked, intense Andrew WK" from one moment to the next.
Shapeshifter perhaps ?
It's the only thing that makes sense, so I vote yes.
I appreciate it you alien overlord...
Yesssss, I implore you to re-dive and do a writeup on this part of the Andrew WK mystery, since it’s nearly as widespread and nuanced as the Mike Steev stuff. And because my ADD is too bad to get such a writeup together myself.
IIRC this theory was brought back up after Andrew W.K. performed at E3 in 2018. People noticed Andrew looked...different. I wouldn't be surprised if Andrew W.K. was a pen name and gets passed on to different people who all look similar
One explanation I've heard is that he stopped using steroids, so he's no longer jacked or raging.
I saw him live last year. Dude's still jacked as hell.
Can anyone shed more light on this? I've heard this before but never heard anything convincing
I feel confident that it's #3 and that it was first and foremost a playful artistic experiment and secondly a bit of P.R. It reminds me very much of the rumors surrounding Andy Kaufman's death, his character Tony Clifton, and his friend Bob Zmuda. I think it's important to note that Andrew W.K. was first embraced by art-hipsters who like guitar riffs. He very much grew out of the fertile zone that lies between art school and Heavy Metal Parking Lot. In these early years part of his management team was Matt Sweeney, an indie rock guitar god (should such a thing exist) who is something of the mayor of Artsy-Power-Chord-Ville. At the same thime that Sweeney was managing Andrew W.K. he was the main wingman and collaborator of Will Oldham, a brilliant songwriter who performs under the name Bonnie Prince" Billy (he sometimes talks as though "Bonnie" and Will are different people) and draws inspiration from George Jones and The Misfits/Danzig. I think Andrew W.K. has to be understood as coming out of that scene.
I wanted to see if anybody else thought of that parallel - I also think that the whole thing could be a joke because he has an Andy Kaufman kind of sense of humor.
Someone who wanted to play a long con and is delighted by confusing people/creating chaos would happily spend hours on spoof websites and other details.
Yeah, I think it is very relevant. The indie/art rock world he rubbed up against was full of other playful/artsy mysteriousness like that.
Damn all of those names in a row just made me have an intense flashback to 11th grade
Voooolaaaareeeee!!!
Yes, I thought exactly the same.
I'll take Publicity Stunt for $400, Alex
It seems pretty clear to me that it's all marketing and "lore building", almost an ARG. It might be Andrew himself, or it might be a marketing company hired to do this for him.
Now that's marketing work I would *love* to do.
"Can you come up with a rival musician or some sort of identity for the band to 'beef' with? We don't want to actually fight anyone, we just need some kind of mystery and conflict and drama to drive attention and sales."
fuck yes I can, do you want it with or without death threats and kidnapped "fans"
A. W. K. Ward.
Good write up! I’m leaning towards the 3rd option. Also, his dad wrote my 1L Property Law textbook. Groovy.
After reading this whole write-up, the bit on the wiki page about his dad writing the property text was the craziest to me.
For real. I didn’t recognize his name until it was paired with the other name (“Dukeminier and Krier”). It’s such a weird fact to include on his Wikipedia page. It’s not like legal scholars enjoy celebrity status. It’s almost like he purposefully included that to give some sort of inflated sense of pedigree to his background...
Yeah AWK is steev mike and it's just him having fun and being dumb, I think. I imagine having Steev block the record was an excuse for having a crappy record and wanting time to fix it or trying to drive up some sort of interest. Or both, probably somewhere in the middle. Really interesting, though.
This is really interesting, thanks for the writeup.
I live in Austin, and a friend of mine from LA put together a few really big shows for the SXSW music festival in about 2007/2008. Andrew WK was one of the musicians on the bill, and I went with my friend to pick him up from the airport. It was definitely the real Andrew WK, he wore the typical all white, had the long hair and all that. He was extremely friendly and nice. He loved the neighborhood I lived in and kept talking about that. They dropped me off at work and used my car throughout the day. Andrew ended up “breaking his leg” at some point during the day and played all of his shows in a wheelchair over the next few days. I am 99% sure that he didn’t actually break his leg and I never understood what the deal was with that, my friend wouldn’t really give me the details. This doesn’t solve any of the above issues posted by OP but it’s a true/mildly interesting story nonetheless
Edited for typos
Prince created his own rival with morris day and the time, so theres a precedent for the rival angle.
Although it's almost certainly nothing, I will always wonder about steev
Whoa!?!? I've been a fan since around 2009, I had no idea about this! Thanks!
tony clifton lives
Yeah definitely only one dude doing this. Maybe he's got an actual personality disorder though.
I remember hearing rumors back in 07-08 that Andrew W.K. had actually died and someone else had seamlessly replaced him without anyone knowing.
I absolutely think the third option is highly likely.
That's weirdly such a common conspiracy with musicians. Has anything like that ever actually happened.
Avril lavigne
Paul ‘ faul ‘ McCartney
D A E D S I L U A P
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I totally agree with you. I’ve seen him twice and the entire band puts on great shows. They’re well worth seeing. He played probably the most energetic 45 minute set I’ve ever seen, and immediately stood in line for three hours signing autographs and then returned later to sign plenty more and hung out with folks after the show.
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It makes me wonder... I've never seen him live, but I know that kind of energy is a rare and difficult thing for a band to produce. I'd think it would be even more difficult if the frontman wasn't always the same person. It would be especially hard to fool loyal fans who attend more than one or two shows, ya know?
Hmm... Kristine Williams=KW... WK backwards!
It is so easy to fall down this rabbit hole! Great write up!
Not sure about all this. I saw him in Omaha Nebraska in the basement of some dive bar. Sweet show. Ended up on stage singing with him and my arm over his shoulders like we have been friends for years. That was one of the best concerts I have been to.
r/thathappened sure steev mike
I believe it's all a hoax to generate publicity. It's "Paul Is Dead" for this generation.
He's really the Dread Pirate Roberts.
I saw Andrew WK live around 2004 and he shit his pants on stage.
What about this does _not_ scream publicity stunt? What makes you not just dismiss it as that? Very interesting write up thank you, it's a bit like the banksy mystery.
What Banksy mystery, if you don’t mind me asking?
Banksy is a famous graffiti artist, whose identity is a mystery.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/who-is-banksy-we-rank-the-ten-most-plausible-theories-699059
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-behind-banksy-4310304/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/arts/design/uk-banksy-painting-sothebys.html
The internet claims to know who it is though, initials R.G. if you decide to look into it you'll see the name keep popping up.
Oh just like the mystery behind the identity of the art persona of Banksy in general like if it's more than one person, who are they if so etc. I believe there are more than even the couple of people who have been pointed out so far who are behind it/are helping them do it.
You only used the world "allegedly" three more times in the story. I expected more from a varsity letterman.
Oh, I remember reading about this a really long time ago, and I can't remember how I got to the conclusion I came to, but I seem to remember deciding that it was most likely him, or someone helping him, doing it for publicity. If it is that, I'd like to say good game, well played to him. It really is very interesting whether its real or not.
What if he's Malaclypse the Younger!?
There is something kind of discordian about the whole thing.
Right? Crafting non-existence, fucking with people? Different body shapes? I mean, it's batshit crazy, but we all are...
I met Andrew WK. Hung out with him and Jimmy in San Francisco rapping Ludacris till 4am...
Dude is brilliant at connecting with people and mirroring them. Which makes me believe all this "conspiracy" was done by Andrew to stir the pot and create hype. He heard a conspiracy about how he looked different in I Get Wet music video and leaned into it.
I love it.
Paul is dead. Andrew is Steev.
MTE.
So just gonna put this out here. I went to school with him. He exists. He was a very quiet kid during high school...the polar opposite of the stage persona that Andrew W.K. became.
Can you share proof of this? What is his real name?
Nothing more than this, not trying to identify myself...been pretty good at staying anon on the internet since the early 90s. I went to Community High from 94-97. I was part of the loser crowd...the nerds that played MTG and DnD (it was actually Rifts and Battlelords). We were arch-typical losers...and he was a loner even to us. When he first got big I remember going WTF? That's not him? That CAN'T be him?
I'm pretty sure he's someone who's made several massive transitions mentally, and that would easily explain a lot of these "oddities" that have gone on with him.
He succeeded pretty fucking well for what he did, I can't hate on him for that.
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Obviously both. They re the same person.