Who Do I Write Like?

I finally gave in this morning and plugged a couple blog entries into the "Who do I write like...." site, which purports to apply various algorithms to your writing and tell you who you stack up to.

Apparently, according to this site, everybody writes like David Foster Wallace -- whereas in real life almost no one does -- or Stephen King (whereas in real life, yeah, probably everybody tries to at least). I am almost sure Hoda Kotb, for example, does not write like David Foster Wallace, especially since she giggled obliviously when that name was assigned to her on the Today Show -- suggesting perhaps she's unaware of either the tragic circumstances of his untimely death, or his staggering genius.

I expected I would get one of those two (or maybe Kathie Lee Gifford) , but my first post turned up "Cory Doctorow," whom I had never heard of. (Science fiction I think?).

So naturally, I googled "Who the fuck is Cory Doctorow?" and this is what came up:

"Cory Doctorow is an egotistical ass/Internet celebrity/hipster/self-promoting back-stabber and bureaucratic fuck. Ten years ago he was just this guy, y'know, who'd fucked up and flunked out of no less than three university degree programs... Cory likes to say that he runs the BoingBoing (gee, isn't that just the whackiest!) web logs. Cory (or Dr. O, as he likes to be called) and his underlings steal ideas from other popular weblogs and post them on BoingBoing, usually years after everyone else forgot about them—showing, like Paris Hilton, that you really don't need any skills to be popular. If you keep telling everyone you meet that you are popular, it will eventually work." 

And that led down the rabbit hole to this along with this, an article he wrote this spring on the Digital Economy Act. It maybe sounds a little like me, except I never use the word "mates."

Still, it was better than the next post I randomly entered, which showed "I write like Dan Brown." I don't think I've ever read a word of his, but I've certainly heard of him....and I don't exactly consider it a compliment. (Though to be fair, I doubt he'd be flattered either.)

Maybe I'm onto something though: "If you keep telling everyone you meet that you are popular, it will eventually work."  ...?... Will give it a go. Mates.