Fake Sean Connery letter to Steve Jobs goes viral
Faux 007 launching expletives at Apple icon fools British social-media guru and becomes meme material.
- Finalist for the Nesta Tipping Point prize and a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
First, the bad news. Sean Connery never actually sent a typewritten letter to Steve Jobs in 1998 refusing to be in an Apple ad. But the awesome news is that quite a few people believe Connery owns personalized stationery with a "007" vanity stamp in the corner and that he would have no qualms using it to dash off a letter dressing down Jobs by declaring "...you are a computer salesman. I am f%$^ing JAMES BOND!"
The letter was actually part of a satirical article on the previously little known (and very specific) humor site, Scoopertino, which peddles Onion-style and tongue-in-cheek "Unreal Apple News."
But when British marketing exec John Willshire took the letter seriously and posted it on Twitter and his blog, it started rocketing around Twitter and beyond.
At one point early today, Willshire was among the top trending topics on Twitter, beating out even Wimbledon in the U.K. Willshire has since posted an update clarifying that the Connery-to-Jobs letter was in fact a fake and explaining that he had been duped.
Ironically, Willshire sells himself and his firm as specializing in social media, which means one of two things--either he's a bit overconfident, or he's some kind of marketing evil genius who had this entire viral strategy planned from the very start as a publicity stunt. If the reality is the latter, there's only one superspy agent I know of who could challenge such an evil mastermind. I've already begun drafting a letter to Mr. Connery...