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Courtneygate!

By Carl Prine Thursday, September 8th, 2011 12:22 pm
Posted in On Media

Well, my suspicions are right! “Courtney Messerschmidt” is a performance art project run out of Georgia.

The ringleader in Chickamauga, south of Chattanooga, is a 32-year-old man, but he’s joined by a 24-year-old woman who photographs the pieces, a 24-year-old male researcher they’ve nicknamed “Ridiculous Nicholas” who gathers most of the hyperlinks and several others who have formed into what they call an artistic “collective.”

While there is a 21-year-old in the group with the name Courtney, “Messerschmidt” is a play on her last name. According to the registrar at the University of Georgia, she never completed a single credit at the school.

The collective insists that she dropped out as an “incomplete remedial” because she ran into financial problems. I’ve granted anonymity to the man and her for the purposes of getting this out, but I have their real names and addresses.

While I’ve never fully bought into Courtney’s story, portraying it always as a potential performance art piece, you have a right to not only share my suspicions but to confront the truth. She’s not all she claims to be. She’s more! She’s at least four people more!

This was brought to a head by Tiffany Stevens, a reporter at the University of Georgia’s Red and Black student newspaper. She’s working on a story about the group, and it should be ~~a thriller!~~ defamatory! (edit change 9–27-11)

The guy who manages the group called “Courtney Messerschmidt” said, “I guess we’ll probably just make it go away now.”

Well, they’re allowed to keep writing here. As I told Stevens, I always suspected Courtney to be more of a performance art piece than a real person, a contrived Internet avatar of dubious pedigree. Whether “Courtney Messerschmidt” was a 47-year-old truck driver or a 21-year-old junior made little difference as far as that went.

I think the works they produce – the style, the links, the photos – are very high quality and I’ll defend them as performance art pieces.

Not so much a hoax but rather a very elaborate electronic masque, I suppose. Well, I guess I’m glad that they didn’t fully sucker me, but they still had me going in different directions! Still, I feel a little snookered. Oh, well. It was a good caper!

The guy who runs the collective compared the gaggle to The Beatles and said that they got the idea for it in 2006. They’re politically to the right and there really is a “poster child” named Courtney – it’s her Facebook page and she’s featured in some of the images that they use – but they say that they should be thought of as an experiment of sorts.

Fair enough. But no one should believe that “Courtney Messerschmidt” is a single, real person.

I’m glad that I never fully did.

Caveat: I regret in her bio blurb not continuing my suspicions that “Courtney Messerschmidt” might be a performance art project. Stevens was right to point that out. This was done simply for space and I’ve added the disclaimer.

UPDATE: The group has published an apology, of sorts, here.

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	Rex Brynen September 8th, 2011 at 12:31 pm Clever, clever stuff–I hope they write an insiders’ account!
	dongomezjr September 8th, 2011 at 12:53 pm Ha! I knew it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2LjwM3B688
	ScottG September 8th, 2011 at 1:44 pm This must be why peer-reviewed journals still exist and even get printed on real, dead trees.
	Michael Roger Victor Weis September 8th, 2011 at 3:36 pm Like I said before, I couldn’t believe that someone like her could exist.
	surfacesailor September 8th, 2011 at 3:40 pm It’s nice that they consider this a game. Because what’s a game to them, was how I got to where I am today. It’s not that I am all that amazing, or have done amazing things. But, the only reason why I am as close to my life’s goals is because people TRUSTED me online, reached out and took a chance. This “experiment” will make it that much harder for the next motivated person to network online and get people to trust them. What it really comes down to is that there are people in the World that want to be somebody and there are people in the World that want to do something. It’s a shame that those who only want to make a name for their self screw over those who want to do. This whole situation disgusts me on so many levels. May they live forever.
	Bubba September 8th, 2011 at 5:16 pm I’m sure they are also cooking up meth in their spare time. I mean Chattanooga? C’mon. Only two good things came out of Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain and Sarah Jean (my first gf).
	Courtside September 8th, 2011 at 5:29 pm Such things are never as disastrous for those involved, five years later, as it first appears. I suspect their careers are far less endangered than their relationship(s?) with Starbuck, Carl, and other people they actually interacted with beyond just producing a blog.
	CarlPrine September 8th, 2011 at 5:42 pm OK, maybe because I always suspected that it was a performance art troupe I’m treating this with humor. Over the next few weeks I’m going to feature young people who really are thinking about American power. I just finished up an interview that actually began BEFORE the Courtneygate tempest in a tea pot.
	James Ian Burns September 8th, 2011 at 5:52 pm Oh bother. Follow the hunny pot ?
	Mark Pyruz September 8th, 2011 at 8:02 pm Daniel Simpson Day has no grade point average– all courses incomplete. –Dean Wormer
	Not before September 9th, 2011 at 5:14 am It’s not performance art; it’s a hoax. If they had made money at it, they would have taken it and run. Why are you shielding them? Doesn’t speak well of you as an analyst.
	gian p gentile September 9th, 2011 at 6:27 am It is not a big deal, nobody got shot or blown up, no moms and dads or wives get a knock on the door with life changing news. Like the character in question it is ephemeral. Chalk it up to the potential and perils of internet dialogue.
	CarlPrine September 9th, 2011 at 8:24 am But they didn’t try to make money, so the supposition is invalid. I’m shielding them because I gave them anonymity to get the story out. And, “Not Before,” I’ve long written (I think in three or four places, quite prominently) that I thought they were a performance art project, an assembly of some sort. That analysis proved correct. So I guess that my analysis is pretty good. As for people who are shielded, I take it that your parents named you “Not Before?” Exactly.
	yorksranter September 9th, 2011 at 8:50 am The Great Satan’s Girlfriend is a Girlfriend in Canada?
	Dave September 9th, 2011 at 11:47 am But now that they’ve come clean about it, I say they keep it going. It’s sort of like “Jethro Tull”, “Lynyrd Skynyrd“ “Franz Ferdinand” — bands with names after which nobody in the band is actually named. For years (and probably some to this day) people think there is a guy named “Jethro Tull” who leads a band. Not true. An even more apt comparison would be Andrew Sullivan’s, ‘The Dish’. He has a staff that produces most of his posts. Sure, he maintains editorial control, but many of the words on that site were never written by him. Someone who stumbles across the site would not know otherwise unless they catch one of the posts that refers to that reality.
	CarlPrine September 9th, 2011 at 12:07 pm Perhaps because I have a kink for art, I see this more as Warhol’s “Factory,” only composed of a neo-con producer, a grad student hyperlinker and a pretty good photographer of indeterminate politics, plus Courtney and some others as bit writers and a bloggish version of Obama Girl. What amazed me — and why I highlighted my suspicions when I introduced “Courtney Messerschmidt” to this blog — was what a production each blog entry had to be. They had to write a narrative (admittedly simplistic idea but scaffolded by a very complex language), hyperlink it with sometimes fairly obscure online references, gather in their actresses and then stage a themed photo for the happening. People have argued with me that that’s not art. I think that they’re confusing what art is. Politics have always been part of artistic expression and a great deal of effort had to go in to making the “Courtney” product. To me, that’s why it’s not so much a hoax but rather a staged performance art piece, and it’s why I’ve repeatedly called it that in my suspicions. People also are asking me why I at once thought of it as performance art and put it on this blog. Well, that’s easy. I was hoping that it would turn out to be a performance art project! To me that’s so much more interesting than what “Courtney Messerschmidt” was playing at being. I’m interested in the process behind it all, the artifice. But not everyone is.
	Peter J. Munson September 9th, 2011 at 6:06 pm That also is why it pissed me off. Serious people were taking “it” seriously and trying to mentor “it.” If “it” had been a person, “it” would be influencing policy within a few years, given the amount of interest “it” garnered. And this cannot be dismissed as “performance art” given the positions it espoused and the real live and death consequences those positions implied.
	CarlPrine September 9th, 2011 at 6:16 pm That’s BS, Peter. No one took the politics of GSGF seriously. And I’m probably the only person who took what they were actually doing as they conceived it seriously.
	Peter J. Munson September 9th, 2011 at 6:38 pm You’re right. No academics were trying to mentor GSGF. I stand corrected. You are always right.
	CarlPrine September 9th, 2011 at 6:41 pm Obviously academics were trying to mentor “her.” But I don’t think that they took her politics seriously. Unless they were Fred Kagan.
	Peter J. Munson September 9th, 2011 at 6:59 pm I’m not understanding you. If academics were not taking that political stance seriously, why were they seriously trying to mentor it? I’m not saying that they believed in her stance, I’m saying that this idiot world takes that idiot stance seriously. I sit in a headquarters that has f-ing FoxNews playing constantly on a plasma TV you paid for, covering stories like the fantastic new book with a title something like Stopping the Islamization of America as if that was really a threat. Yes, we are all in danger of becoming Islamists here. And Fred Kagan is a hero to these idiots, so yes, I think people took CM seriously.
	CarlPrine September 9th, 2011 at 7:04 pm You were on a thread in which two highly noted professors were moved to help “her.” They do this because they’re professors. They can’t help it. Now, knowing both of these academics personally, I highly doubt that either of them took Courtney’s politics seriously. And I think that you know that, too. I think we need to distinguish that charitable impulse from espousing the CM politics. It’s not fair to them.
	Peter J. Munson September 9th, 2011 at 7:15 pm Again, I’m not saying they subscribe to such politics, I’m saying they thought this was a real person espousing that real political stance. Are you saying that there aren’t people out there who do? They didn’t do it because they support those politics, they do it because they thought that the “person” was too intelligent and informed to support those politics. See neo-con history of Iraq war for the counterpoint.
	gian p gentile September 9th, 2011 at 7:42 pm Come now Peter, what kind of lives and deaths were involved with this harmless exchange? Some of us academics took GSgF on face value as a smart and plucky undergraduate, which is all. I defended GSgF on that perception alone. In fact if you ever have taught undergraduates you would know that what teachers try to produce through teaching is a breaking of frames of reference, to get students to consider alternative views and ways of thinking, to rock them out of their intellectually narrow worlds. So in a sense what was appealing to me about GSgF was the possibility of a young undergraduate with an ability to look beyond current frameworks; now after all of this has been revealed what is interesting is that the combination of people who actually made up GsGf presented a mix of intellectual frameworks that presented the ideal of an intellectually curious undergraduate. But none of this is that big of a deal as i said already; after all it is the blogosphere where handles and nom de guerres abound. Shoot for all we know Move Forward maybe a 70 year old woman and SNLII a drag queen from the east village! :)
	Peter J. Munson September 9th, 2011 at 8:45 pm This was not all that big a deal because GSGF was not a real person. Had she been real, I truly believe that a think tank would have picked her up for her name in this atmosphere where the for-entertainment media model has transferred to some of the policy world. Then, before long she’d be touring commands as a “COIN expert” asking stupid questions and cheering on stupid policies. Call me crazy, but there are plenty of people around who, while they may be smart, are in positions of policy influence because of the name they won through a one-off book, or a blog, or some other elevation of their name. And I didn’t attack “it” at its blog, I challenged Carl giving it a podium which lent it some degree of his legitimacy as an established journalist at a blog that is something other than one of the million you can create on your own. I’m all for debating with undergrads, etc, etc, but what I was against was a false elevation of the nonsense that the artistic troupe formerly known as GSGF spouted.
	Madhu September 9th, 2011 at 9:21 pm Lying is not cool.
	CarlPrine September 9th, 2011 at 9:35 pm Actually, I got the feeling that not all members of the troupe are very political, the women especially.
	CarlPrine September 9th, 2011 at 9:36 pm I gave it a voice as a performance art piece and I still would do so. Forgive me if I find the group much more intriguing than I did the fabricated voice.
	@AmPowerBlog September 9th, 2011 at 10:01 pm Carl, I communicated with Courtney by email since 2007, and I do believe she took neconservatism genuinely seriously.
	Deus Ex September 10th, 2011 at 1:57 am I couldn’t agree more. Mr. Munson, do you have a blog/website/published books? Serious question.
	Deus Ex September 10th, 2011 at 2:01 am No, Carl, you said you gave her a voice, in part, because she was a female in a male-dominated intellectual establishment. And if that’s honestly your reason, then your original written rationale for integrating her into LOD (nlt H+45) surely didn’t reflect that.
	Kelley V September 10th, 2011 at 6:37 am Um, you guys all got taken for chumps, pain and simple. It might hurt, but go back and read all of your comments, all of the threads on this site involving ‘Courtney.’ Cringeworthy doesn’t even begin to sum it up. To say now, “I suspected all along it was just performance art,” and “it’s no big deal,” is just a limp and sad attempt to gather up any of your remaining pride lost in what was clearly a calculated — and wildly successful — booby trap (couldn’t help that) which took up an inordinate amount of time and energy on this blog. Take responsibility. There were maybe two guys on this site who attempted to rein this farce in, and they were shot down by the rest of you, who were acting like the pathetic lead characters in “Three Men and a Little Lady.” So spare us. The joke’s on you. Don’t deny it — own it — and then maybe some of us will learn from this embarrassing experience.
	Carl Prine September 10th, 2011 at 7:39 am Except that I disclosed on at least four occasions that I thought it was a collective, albeit one I assumed was at least run by a young woman. And last time I checked, I was the one who outed them. As for taking up time, actually that’s the exact opposite of what happened. Those submissions made time for me to do other writings. The irony is that for all the gnashing of teeth and, yes, beating of breasts, Courtney wasn’t really that popular here, but a sizable group still liked her and their politics, such as they were, balanced out mine, I thought. I feel that to some extent I was snookered, Kelley, but I find some humor in this episode that apparently you lack. I nevertheless take your criticisms seriously and share some of them.
	Carl Prine September 10th, 2011 at 7:41 am Well, DE, I thought that it likely was a collective, but I assumed that the person they call their “poster child” was the producer. I was most certainly wrong about that! The person they use as the face of CM is a bit player. An important element to be sure, but not the mind behind the entire effort.
	gian p gentile September 10th, 2011 at 8:42 am Nobody is denying anything, Carl isn’t, he said he got hoodwinked. And as I recall your facts are wrong, most people on this blog were hammering her/it and just a few of us stuck up for her/it (but in the ways i describe in my above post). Can you move on now to other things? As I said before it REALLY isn’t that big of a deal. It is the blogosphere where handles abound and people vicariously impersonate and create ideas and arguments all of the time. I know since I have been stalked on certain military blogs by people with anonymous handles who wait for me to say something anti-coin then pounce on me with fangs out. But really Kelly, get over this, there are more important things to worry about in life. Pictures in a special cabinet in my office of dead Americans remind me of this every day.
	gian p gentile September 10th, 2011 at 8:52 am I took her on face value to be real (real defined as an energetic and relatively smart undergrad) and also Carl’s noble attempt to bring in younger voices (especially female ones since they are lacking in defense studies and circles). I never bought into or supported any of her/it arguments, only the face-value assumption on my part that she was a real undergraduate college student. But again, I fail to to seen the signfiicance of all of this. It is the blogosphere where handles abound. Shoot DE you yourself use a handle, as do many others, so when can we ever know in this medium who or what combinations of who are behind the screen name and handle?
	Kelley V September 10th, 2011 at 9:34 am It’s interesting how the conventional defensive crouch is to accuse your critics of having “no sense of humor.” On the contrary, if you had a “sense” of humor, you would have seen this joke coming down Broadway, or at least had the “sense” of letting it implode on a website other than LoD, which, the last time I looked, wasn’t The Onion. Should have let this play out over at Wings Over Iraq or over at Ricks’ blog. I’m going to give you the same advice you once gave me, Carl. Stick to straight journalism, you’re damn good at it. Everything else makes you look foolish.
	CarlPrine September 10th, 2011 at 9:47 am But I did NOT say that you should avoid commenting. Obviously, I read you because you’re a very fine writer, as I’ve previously said. Your opinions are important. I criticized one piece out of, what, a thousand you’ve penned? So, come write here. You can make your first post why I’m a buffoon. I don’t care. I go after Yon all the time here. Those posts are MUCH more popular than anything written here by the artists formerly known as Courtney Messerschmidt. And inspired by your advice, I’ll also take down the tab for CM. A lot of people don’t understand that. It’s one of many tabs I’ve toyed around with. There’s still one up there for Jamie, and he isn’t coming back. But if symbolically I can show that your criticism is taken seriously, I’ll rip it down now.
	Publius September 10th, 2011 at 8:46 pm I never took this blog seriously. Checked it out a couple of times, but found it chaotic and not worth reading. So now it’s outed as being fraudulent. I don’t care. One person named Courtney, or Manny, Moe, Curly and Shemp, it’s just another in a universe of ten million or more blogs fighting for attention. It’s the Internet. Buyer beware. We live in a pseudonymic age: Who really cares if Courtney exists? I use a pseudonym for what I believe to be sound reasons. Don’t like it? I don’t care. I always say, “Name is unimportant, content is everything.” If you liked the web site before, if you found it to contain valuable information and/or insight, why would this revelation turn you off? You never knew “Courtney.” You never had any reason to believe that she existed at all anyway. So now you know “she” is multiple personalities. So what. And I think some very serious people are being a little too defensive here. Lighten up, guys.
	CarlPrine September 10th, 2011 at 10:56 pm I’ve decided that I’m the barker and this is my electronic freak show, Publius. One might enter for free. The freaks don’t mind.
	gian p gentile September 11th, 2011 at 10:25 am I agree, it isnt important. Let’s move past it. gian
	Michael September 12th, 2011 at 9:52 am Why is it every dumba$$ reporter has to put the word “Gate” at the end of a news story? Are they too dumb to come up with some new catch phrase?
	Carl Prine September 12th, 2011 at 10:41 am It was done as a joke to lampoon that very convention. So glad you got it…
	Deus Ex September 12th, 2011 at 5:33 pm ty, will be checking you site frequently. Although I hope it doesn’t become an echo chamber of my ideas because I have agreed with you far too frequently.
	Deus Ex September 12th, 2011 at 5:37 pm Also forgive my word-use redundancy. Coffee needed.
	Web Bridges September 12th, 2011 at 7:47 pm Perhaps, Carl, the “that that’s not art” argument stems from how the crowd defines “art.” Often when many think of “art” the mental image invoked is usually one of paintings on a wall or sculptures in a museum or park, without considering the vast milieu of artistic expression. Some often view movies and theater as mere “entertainment” vice performance “art.” Granted, I never caught on to GsGf as the work of a performance art troupe since I didn’t follow it that closely, I did believe there was a real “Courtney Messherschmidt,” and I was intrigued by the persona presented: Not too many hip hop/alternative/punk milbloggers around the Interwebs. As for GsGf, I saw it more along the lines of a National Defense version of the Drudge Report, with a particular patois added. As Gian notes, time’s up, no blood, no foul, shall we move on now.
	xopher September 12th, 2011 at 11:55 pm Wow, this is undoubtedly the most f#(&d up crowd up people I’ve read in a long time. Did y’all really, I mean, really, get that wrapped up in these writings? In what’s become a common template, “IT’S TEH INTARNETS STUPID(s)!!!” Holy Crap, I tell ya what, I’ve got Saddam and Osama’s entire personal libraries to sell to the highest bidder! Honest Abe, for reals. Let’s start at 500K. Do I hear 500K?
	xopher September 13th, 2011 at 12:00 am Full Disclosure: The previous post was actually written by 43.673 Oompah Loompahs in the direct employ of GSGF. We apologize for any confusion on the part of the consumoron.
	Ben September 14th, 2011 at 5:14 pm I’ll admit it. I enjoyed the eyecandy sexytime pron. At the same time, I was charmed by the serious content. “She’s a brave, smart chica! And hot, too!” I ROOT FOR UNDERDOGS, so I was impressed she was bucking the tide of disparaging doodery. And now it turns out to have been a committee of neocon choads. PWND again by the internet. If I were a woman trying to buck the tide of choadery in this man’s world, I’d be p#$$d.

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