Green Collar Crime
How I stopped an Internet sex hoax.
By Cyrus Farivar
Posted Monday, Aug. 1, 2005, at 9:31 AM PT
A tip for all of you aspiring investigative reporters: When you expose an Internet sex hoax, there are going to be consequences. Take it from me. My sleuthing got me an unplanned role in a piece of erotic fiction that starred Chewbacca as a Wookiee Casanova.
It all started on the weekend of July 4, when I spotted a discussion on the Web site Metafilter about a new fad called “greenlighting.” The dubious claim was that an “emerging underground [group] of sexually promiscuous teenagers” had started wearing green shirts with the collar popped up. When a greenlighter spotted a fellow traveler, he yanked his or her collar down, triggering anonymous sexual escapades. (What’s it called when you wave off a green-shirted lothario? Redlighting, of course.)
Along with several other bloggers, I immediately posted my doubts that these jolly green hornballs existed. Later that day, I checked my blog’s traffic reports and found that a number of visitors were coming from WookieFetish, a site that, true to its name, sports a photo of Han Solo’s big hairy sidekick, Chewbacca. The page that linked to my site was locked up in WookieFetish’s members-only discussion boards. I signed up for an account using my real name and the handle “cfarivar.”
