Web standards doppelgangers?
August 12, 2002 | 
11 Comments
I got an email this morning from my friend, co-worker and producer extrodinare Brian Fling. It reads as follows:
Subject: Zeldman
So I heard a funny rumor this weekend from a friend in the Mozilla circles that you may know is true or untrue:
The rumor is that Eric Meyer (http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/) is Jeffery Zeldman (http://www.zeldman.com). He made Zeldman up to give a figurehead to web standards.
I don’t know what to believe, but I thought it was funny nevertheless.
-Brian
I mentioned that they were both up here in Seattle, speaking at Web Design World, at the same time, and that my pal Byron had spent some time with Zeldman, so there was no way they could be the same person.
Then the whole Andy Kaufman / Tony Clifton thing came up.
Looking at the sheer amount of work Meyer and Zeldman do, and the time it must take being either one of them, I decided that maybe this is some kind of group effort, possibly masterminded by an evil corporation (you know, lead by The Man) like in the classic movie Pootie Tang and neither one of them is real!
Makes you wonder, don’t it?
Sine yo pitty on the runny kine.
Filed under: Web General
Comments
1. El-Keter said:
Anyone who can drop references to web standards, Andy Kaufman/Tony Clifton and Pooty Tang in one post is all right with me.
Posted on August 12, 2002 11:01 PM | #
2. Ian Hickson said:
Can’t speak about Zeldman, but I know Eric personally, and I can confirm that he’s very real. :-)
Posted on August 14, 2002 05:10 PM | #
3. Stef said:
No No!! Zeldman is a clone! (there are lots of mini-Zeldmans doing the work at happycog, alistapart, WaSP and even zeldman.com!) they were created by the evil Dr Nielsen…
Posted on August 15, 2002 02:14 AM | #
4. burt said:
zeldman is no clone - he is the holy being!! worship @ the alter of web standards!!
Posted on August 15, 2002 08:57 AM | #
5. TjL said:
OOps…. I wonder if I had anything to do with starting that little rumor ;-)
See http://www.tntluoma.com/notes/000040.php for a full description of the possible genesis of this rumor.
Unless it’s true… then I’ve uncovered a huge secret…
Posted on August 15, 2002 12:25 PM | #
6. Will said:
Actually, I thought that either Mr. Zeldman or Mr. Meyer was the original Mini-me. Perhaps I am still right. ;-)
Posted on August 15, 2002 12:49 PM | #
7. zeldman said:
You guys don’t know half of the story. Ever wondered why Jakob Nielsen and I never stood on the same stage?
Posted on August 16, 2002 01:28 AM | #
8. Jsiburt said:
Now I understand why the forward to Eric’s new book was so complementary and seemed to be written in the same style. Wow he really is a genius!
Posted on August 16, 2002 06:46 AM | #
9. dkr said:
Ever heard of namdlez - the evil dark side of zeldman from dimension x? I hear there is a namdlez.com site in the work. A “friend” of mine told me that in order to keep namdlez.com from becoming out default homepage (FOR EV ER), we need to chant “namdlez.com namdlez.com namdlez.com” everytime we open our browsers. Pass it on.
Posted on August 16, 2002 12:03 PM | #
10. Rick said:
Who fucking Cares?
Posted on September 10, 2002 04:27 AM | #
11. telbij said:
11 months later…
Posted on July 12, 2003 03:55 PM | #
Comments are now closed