A number of years ago I was skimming through the letter page in Maxim, or Stuff, or FHM, or one of the other magazines of their ilk, when I stumbled upon a letter about an interview with Tom Arnold that had run in a previous issue.
The letter writer took the editors to task for a mistake they’d made in the interview when Arnold was quoted as having a period in his life when he spent time “getting drunk on Everclear.”
The letter writer – in an effort to be helpful while simultaneously proving that he’s smarter than some editor – suggested, “I think you mean getting drunk with Everclear, the band.” He then went on to explain that the lead singer of the band would have been of age at the time referred to by Arnold, and speculates that they must have been drinking buddies.
Of course, anyone familiar with the grain alcohol – from which the band likely derives its name, though I can’t say that for sure and don’t care enough to look it up – knows that the writer was an idiot, and the editor responded to the letter by saying, “You’re an idiot,” or words to that effect (since we’re talking about the editor of a magazine like Maxim or whatever it was, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he said, “Your an idiot,” or even, “Your a idiot.”).
In any case, in comics fandom – I’m sure this applies to all forms of fandom, it’s just that comics fandom is what I’m most familiar with – you run into this kind of misguided know-it-all-ism all of the time as someone tries to prove just how smart he is and how much he knows but ends up proving just the opposite.
For example, in the comments of a blog I was reading today, someone made a reference to the opera that the Waynes took young Bruce to see on the night they were killed in the movie Batman Begins. Shortly thereafter, another poster commented on how the Waynes took him to a movie, not an opera. A third poster then pointed out that, yes, in the comics, they took him to a movie, but in the movie, as the original poster had explicitly stated, they took him to see an opera.
This sort of thing invariably happens in the comments section of comics-related blogs as fans try to prove just how smart they are and fall flat on their faces, just like the Maxim (or whatever) reader. It happens so often, in fact, that I’ve decided it needs a name, and so I have dubbed it the Everclear Effect.
(By the way, the actual Everclear Effect brought on by drinking Everclear is likely to be unconsciousness.)
The Everclear Effect is related to a similar, pre-Internet phenomenon that I have dubbed No-Prize Nonsense.
Years ago, when comic books had letter pages, Marvel Comics introduced the concept of the No-Prize. The idea was simple, if a bit confusing for some people. If you spotted an apparent mistake in a Marvel comic, you would have to come up with a way of explaining why it actually wasn’t a mistake (thereby getting the writer, artist, or editor off the hook for screwing up), write up your explanation in a letter, mail it in, and, if printed, collect your official “No-Prize.”
Honestly, it was a pretty good gag that let you sort of pluck the noses of comics’ creators in a good-natured way and show off your own creativity and it did a lot to add some fun and interactivity to the comics.
However, every month saw the printing of a letter in which someone merely pointed out a mistake without explaining it away and demanded a No-Prize, thereby showing that they had an incomplete and inaccurate understanding of what it took to earn the “prize” they so desperately desired, making them appear foolish in the eyes of other fans, the very fans they had hoped to impress by earning a No-Prize.
Anyway, what was my point? Oh yeah; people are dumb.
Oh, and you should use the phrase The Everclear Effect whenever applicable so that it makes its way into the vernacular, and make sure that you attribute it to me.
Now go forth and do my bidding!
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