Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The Fairy Tale That Is Persiankiwi and PersianKiwie

In the midst of a struggle, people need a hero. A living, breathing symbol of courage in a world that is increasingly oppressive and dark. Someone who they can look to for inspiration and encouragement, especially in the darkest of hours. Ghandi and Martin Luther King were such men. They existed, and there are long, detailed histories of them and their feats. Unfortunately, men such as this are not always there when the people need them. Fortunately, there are enough resourceful and creative humans around to compensate for this. If there are no heroic symbols alive, one can always create them, We've seen it before. Robin Hood is a perfect example. So are, to lesser extents, the pied piper and Peter Pan. Legends and fairy tales created to give people hope and inspiration.
In June, 2009, as Iran came unglued and the streets were filled with protesters and riot police locked in bloody clashes, a hero was created for the benefit of the "Sea of Green." With the aid of Twitter, and some very creative people, a fictitious person with the handle of PersianKiwi came into existence in the cyberworld. Persiankiwi, or PK as he/she is more commonly known, claimed to be a member of the opposition and gave what many believed to be accurate, first hand reports of the situation in Iran through Twitter.
Here is the Wikipedia article that gives a good account of the Persiankiwi fable.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persiankiwi

PK mysteriously disappeared one day in June after tweeting an ominous note. No one has heard from him/her ever since. Despite the fact that it is impossible to verify PK's existence, he has built up a massive following on Twitter. His absence is consistently talked about. Rumors are traded about his actual status. Some say he is alive and hiding. Others say he's been arrested and is in prison. I've even heard it said that he could be a Basij or government agent out to plant misinformation. No one knows for sure.

In late June or early July of 2009 the Iran threads on twitter were alive with news that PK had came back with a new name: Persiankiwie. People rejoiced and spread the word. PKiwiE claimed his original account was hijacked by the Basij and it was no longer safe. He also went on to claim that he had "hard proof" that yours truly, Eyeranprotestr, was a Basij agent. Well! Imagine my surprise. This lead me to believe that PK and PKiwiE were both imposters. I even went as far as to research PersianKiwiE and discovered that he was, in fact, an imposter. I made contact with him and my suspicions were verified. Brother PKiwiE was a fraud and made it known to the Twitter world.
The backlash was titanic. RT's soared across Twitter world announcing that PKiwiE was a fake! And so, the seeds of doubt were sewn about the original PersianKiwi.
I believed PersianKiwi was an imposter who, amazingly enough, was able to snooker thousands of people on twitter, who were hungry for a hero, into believing he was their salvation. fter some additional research, I discovered my doubts were accurate.
The truth is that PK is simply a fable conjured up by some college kids in California. I've been in contact with them. I know their names and where they go to school. They informed me that soon PK will return to Twitter under the original name and try again to "fool the idiots on there who cannot think for themselves" one more time.
Bravo, for the PK fairy tale! You've succeeded in fooling thousands of people and even getting PK's own wikipedia entry, and dozens of mentions on CNN and other news outlets worldwide. And PK don't even exist!!! He's not in Tehran, he's in Burbank!
Bravo!!