I Was a Sinister Minister of Misinformation

How I wrote "fake news" for fun and profit

Much of what I learned about journalism in college was worthless on the open market, but my years there changed my life through friendships and books.

I was obsessed with the constellation of artists interviewed in RE/Search: Pranks! , working in the medium of playful deception and legally ambiguous public disturbance. I had one close friend who loved discussing art, theater, media manipulation, power dynamics, and, most importantly, the incomparable brilliance of Portishead with me.?

He was a fledgling underground hip-hop DJ with a penchant for copyright-infringing “mashups” a few years before they were everywhere. By the time I chose my stomach over my soul and took a job in advertising, my friend was becoming a major star in the music world.?

I didn’t expect to hear from him again after that, so I was thrilled when he called me from Hollywood unexpectedly… with an intriguing business opportunity.

By then, we’d spent many hours discussing our shared loathing for celebrity culture?—?not for celebrities themselves, but its consumers and profiteers.

Gone were the days of the icy, untouchable Marlene Dietrich mode of stardom. This was the time of MySpace, when entertainers were suddenly expected to make themselves ubiquitous and vulnerable with fans?—?at their most pathetic, parasitic, and dangerous?—?as a job requirement.

He hated this.

I always thought the most significant benefit of fame would be access to previously unreachable geniuses, resources, and information (along with the small matter of scores of strangers being utterly desperate to fuck the angst out of you).

He said he didn’t trust anyone he didn’t know well before.

Bewildered by his sudden stardom, he nevertheless saw the opportunity for the flavor of mischief we loved.

He’d just produced a phenomenal hit single that was becoming one of the most overplayed songs of the year. The companion album would be released in a few months and was sure to get disproportionate media attention.

He asked if I wanted to work with a graphic designer buddy of his to create a press kit filled with farcical folderol.

“So, a standard press kit?”

“No, Emerson. [BLATANTLY ILLEGAL STROKE OF VANDALISTIC GENIUS REDACTED].”

I spent a month chiseling away at my drafts. It was the most fun I’ve had doing anything for money, and it’s in the conversation for the most fun I’ve ever had fully clothed.

Writing that fake press kit was one of the few times I heard the cosmos bellow, in the voice I associate with Santa Claus and my internal reading of Walt Whitman, “Yes, Emerson, this is exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.”

When they saw the mockups, the higher-ups immediately 86ed the entire concept, with extreme prejudice. They were right to do it. Without revealing too much, we created the Pet Sounds of music-industry trademark violation, an instant summer classic guaranteed to get us all sued into traction.

On the other hand, they did think it was hilarious and asked if I’d be interested in a longer-term engagement.

And that’s how I became a creator of fake PR. A minister of misinformation. Master of obfuscation. Purveyor of BS. A liar for a living, living the true American dream.

If a gaggle of strangers wanted to know something you’d prefer they not, I could, at reasonable rates, create a story that would baffle them so badly they gave up, moved on, and left you alone.

I performed these services for a number of clients, primarily artists of one stripe or another.

Some skills help make you famous. Mine help neutralize fame’s corrosive effects.

I was successful enough that almost no one knows who they are or what I did. I plan to keep it that way.

Once, in my absence, some of my then-closest friends discussed whom in our social group they’d pick to help them hide a body. They immediately agreed it had to be me. I am a fierce proponent of the Stop Snitching movement. Unless you’re incapable of self-reflection and pose an immediate threat to yourself or others, your secrets are sacred. (You’d have to really do me dirty.)

As years passed, the music industry was pulverized by changing tastes and technologies abetted by a tectonic-plate-shifting recession. Ryan Holiday wrote a book spilling many magic beans I’d been selling. An erstwhile friend-of-a-friend of mine named Steve got himself a new job “flooding the zone with sh*t.”

Meanwhile, I quit drinking, mellowed out, and stabilized my moral compass.

In times of wild discontinuity, the humblest truth is more meaningfully rebellious than any deception, whatever its artistic or comedic merit. That’s what I now believe. Publicly.

Thus, I no longer write “fake news” for fun, profit, creative gratification, or power-mad insanity. If I did, I wouldn’t tell you about it here.

Emerson Dameron is LA’s number-one avant-garde motivational speaker and host of Emerson Dameron’s Medicated Minutes .