Dry Eraser Jenny: The actress behind the hoax
It is revealed that Jenny, the personal assistant who quit via dry-erase board and e-mail because she couldn't stand her boss, was, indeed, an actress playing a part that captured the imagination of millions.
She was so real. Yet she wasn't.
Jenny, the girl who allegedly used a dry-erase board and e-mail to quit and reveal her boss' FarmVille habit after he had allegedly referred to her as a "hot piece of ass," is, indeed, an actress in Los Angeles.
Her name is Elyse Porterfield. She is from Colorado. And she had merely auditioned for the part of the fictional Jenny, a part that has spawned heroine worship from far, wide, and even beyond that.
Although Jay Leno and Good Morning America were said to want her on their show, she must decide where to cash in her fame. There is, for example, a Facebook group called "1,000,000 Strong for DryErase Jenny to Pose in Playboy". It is, fortunately, still more than 999,000 short of its target.
Porterfield, 22, is already on Twitter at Twitter.com/officialelyse. And the only tweet she would offer about her little hoax with TheChive is: "Yes, I am Jenny (the dry-erase board HPOA) :) Thanks to the creative and amazing duo John and Leo Resig at TheChive.com." I am sure she now has very good agents.
Part of the fascination of Jenny's fictitious story is that it coincided with the real story of a JetBlue flight attendant, Steven Slater, who, having been allegedly cursed out by a passenger, announced that he was quitting just after his plane had landed, proceeding to sweep down the emergency slide, only to be subsequently arrested.
Slater has also become a hero. He now enjoys more than 120,000 friends and supporters on Facebook.
Working people who feel they have been squeezed a little too much, a little too often, may find that the only way to receive some modicum of revenge--or even a sympathetic audience--is on the vast, (currently) open support group that is the Web. This should make it quite fun for everyone else.