Dan Lyons, who made blogging history with his brilliant brand of satire as the wildly popular Fake Steve Jobs persona, has unexpectedly fired himself, sending the Real Dan Lyons packing late Wednesday afternoon. Effective immediately Lyons will no longer host RealDan.com which he nurtured after abandoning "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs" back in July of this year.
The abrupt firing came after Lyons removed a controversial post, "Jerry Yang Out" from his blog calling Yahoo's PR operators, "lying sacks of shit", feeling that he was given misleading information by Yahoo when writing a Newsweek piece last month. One report confirms that Noobweek bosses made him yank the inappropriate blog post shortly after Yahoo allegedly lodged a complaint against Lyons for being frighteningly accurate. [link]
"Dan finally gave himself a come-to-Jesus talk saying; 'Look Dan maybe it's time you hang this shit up broheim, move on and find a more creative way to call Yahoo PR people lying sacks of shit,' a source close to Lyons said, "He eventually gave into his own inner dialog and hours later an announcement confirmed he had been fired."
A move of such integrity by a journalist is commendable during a time when so many industry hacks are facing involuntarily job layoffs. Dan's self-firing sets a new standard for some 70 million independent bloggers who unlike Lyons are simply not brave enough to fall on their own sword. Bloggers who are guilty of saying shit much worse than Dan Lyons ever did, with so many of their posts and opinions being little more than useless bloggorhea, incapable of offending, entertaining or enlightening anyone.
My point is summed up perfectly by Fake Steve Jobs critiquing Jerry Yang, who worked a short stint as a guest blogger on "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs" back in June. FSJ's critique found in his post, "Enough Is Enough! I Just Fired That Idiot Jerry Yang" is even more relevant in light of recent events.
"You suck, Jerry. You SUCK! Your company sucks and you suck and your blogging sucks! I hope you don't fuck as badly as you blog, because if you do I'm going to send some flowers to your wife to cheer her up. Seriously, dude. You suck, and you're fired." Lyons said under the influence of his Fake Steve Jobs persona.
As expected Lyons played down his self-firing in an e-mail he sent to The Associated Press.
"The bottom line is I don't want to jeopardize a job I like (and which feeds my hungry 3-year-old twins) over some blog that's just a funny little thing I'm doing in my spare time," Lyons wrote.
In typical fashion Lyons chose to be professional and overly gracious when referring to his RealDan blog as being "funny". Insiders claim Lyons is actively seeking his own replacement to start work as the Fake Dan Lyons. That claim is still unconfirmed. Regardless, it's time now to start a long healing process while working under the suffocating stare of Noobweek, an option for Lyons that may be bitter sweet. Best of luck with that one Dan.
[photo by Emerce]
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