Canadian Fan

From CaseyPedia

The "Canadian Fan" is an anonymous man who allegedly gave Casey Serin $1000 (Canadian), no strings attached, ostensibly to continue blogging. After entertaining a generous offer of room and board by two other loons in Australia, Serin pondered how he would get there, having no money for airfare. In a moment of serendipity, a man from Canada offers some money:

Then another crazy thing happens. Another fan from Canada emails me saying that he’ll give me $1,000 for me to keep blogging. He missed reading my stuff. He is a young entrepreneur and thinks it was a big shame to close the blog down because it was finally making full-time income and he was getting a lot of benefit from it and thinks others do to. He wanted to see how I make my come-back story and all that.^[1]

Serin agreed to take the money, in order to become a nationally recognized, didgeridoo-playing fugitive. However, various Haterz™ immediately speculate the whole "anonymous donation" is a hoax, intended to cover up either of the following scenarios:

• Serin draining all available bank accounts to come up with the airfare money himself.
• Serin's parents/family disowning him, and offering the money, on condition that he never returns.

[edit] Identity of Benefactor

An oddly prescient, but cryptic, comment was left by "midou25" as a response to Declan McCullagh's article on CNET about Serin shutting down his blog:

I am willing to give you 1000 dollars if you open the blog again.^[2]

McCullagh confirmed in a follow-up article that the man who posted this comment was, in fact, the actual donor of the money:

A CNET News.com reader appears to have footed the bill for the Australia trip. In an e-mail message on June 2, that reader offered to pay $1,000 to keep the blog going--and apparently followed through. Serin wrote in follow-up message four days later: "That guy WAS for real. A true supporter. Crazy things happen when you're blogging."^[3]

It is still possible that Serin lied to McCullagh about the entire affair, and that the benefactor was in fact a sockpuppet invented by Serin himself.

[edit] References

1. ↑ Australia and Idiot Haterz, IAFF Post on June 11, 2007.
2. ↑ Open Letter to Casey, Comment by midou25 on June 2, 2007
3. ↑ Hated Blogger Leaves U.S., Threatens Lawsuits, ZDNet Article, June 12, 2007