Do I Have to Be the One to Call Bullsh*t on 'Sh*t My Dad Says'?
When comedy writer Justin Halpern started the Twitter phenomenon called "Sh*t My Dad Says," he explained his dad-cataloguing like so: "I'm 29. I live with my 74-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down sh*t that he says." Tomorrow, a book of his dad's bon mots will hit stores, and later this month, CBS may announce the series pickup of a comedy pilot based on the property, starring William Shatner as the irascible father.
There's just one thing. I kind of don't believe his dad is actually saying this stuff anymore?
I mean, once upon a time, perhaps Halpern's father Sam was spouting expletive-laden pearls of wisdom that easily met Twitter's 140-character limit with little to no modification. I just have a hunch that since that beginning, Justin's been responsible for the bulk of those too-perfect Tweets, and profiles like these don't help matters any.
From Paste:
Although Halpern reads his dad the stories for the book before he sends them to his editor, Sam will never give an interview and doesn't seem to care about the attention. "He's so curmudgeonly that he's impenetrable almost," Justin says. "He's the type of guy, if people were harassing him, he'd just come outside with his shotgun." He pauses. "Which is not loaded, but you never know."
From the LAT:
Sam did have one stipulation after hearing about the experiment. "Keep the money from whatever you get. I have my own money," Justin recalled his dad saying. "I just don't want to do any interviews."
He reinforced that last week when The Times requested Justin pitch the interview idea again to his father, who is apparently a longtime reader of the newspaper. "'The L.A. Times wants to interv --' 'No,' " Justin recapped in an e-mail.
"He hates attention," Justin said about his dad.
Which is why his son would start a cottage industry around him! Makes sense.
No. No, actually, it doesn't make sense. I mean I hate to be the guy who craps on someone else's achievement, and there are certainly tons of people who love Halpern's Twitter, but this all smells more than a little Catfish-y to me. In all the years I've been a journalist, the only time I've ever seen people unilaterally refuse an interview is when something strange is going on.
Certainly, if Justin were writing the bulk of his father's tweets, there'd be ample reason to keep Sam under wraps: What if the dad's voice doesn't match his tweets, or a journalist brings something up that he doesn't remember writing? On the other hand, I can't think of a good reason for Sam to give absolutely no interviews. If he really does value his privacy to such an obsessive degree, then why would his son build a Twitter account devoted to his most private musings? (According to Justin, he didn't even tell his father about the Twitter until it had already become famous. If that's supposed to square with the low profile his father supposedly fights to maintain, then it's kind of a dick move on the son's part, no?).
Admittedly, it's just a theory. I don't have any proof that Justin is behind his dad's tweets, other than the fact that he's a former Maxim and Holy Taco writer whose writing is suspiciously similar in certain ways (then again, don't we all sound like our dads to a degree?). Still, we live in a skeptical era of Photoshoppery, hoaxes, and weird excuses. Justin's dad may talk a lot of sh*t. I'd just be more inclined to buy it if once in a while, he said that sh*t to a reporter.
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Comments
That's some brilliant detective work there, genius.
Yeah, it's got a JT LeRoy feel to it.
I'm not saying yay or nay, but the one where his dad supposedly told him to post the texting number so that people could give money to the earthquake victims felt a little odd.
My parents have a hard time working the toaster.
But as for his (Halpern's) legitimacy? It's completely understandable. If his dad says colorful things like that and isn't tech savvy? How would it hurt? What were the odds the thing would explode in popularity the way it did? And if no ex-girlfriends or friends with grudges haven't sold him out yet, chances are pretty good it's real. (At least in origin.)
As for no interviews being granted, maybe the guy just isn't into all that hullabaloo. (Yeah, I actually just typed that. - Apologies.)
He sees a way for his kid to make scratch (so he can move the hell out of the house) and says, "Ride it. But don't hassle me about it."
I call bullsh*t on the writer of this article. Perhaps if "kyle" wasn't jealous of another writer making it before him, he wouldn't have to write this crap article. Why is it so weird to think that someone like Justin Halpern's father wouldn't want to do interviews? He probably knows he'd have to talk to someone like Kyle, and that thought disgusts him.
Does this also mean that Luke Skywalker is actually writing the @ShitMyDarthSays tweets himself?
Calm down, Justin.
I appreciate that "kyle" was in quotation marks. Who knows what we can believe in anymore?
Kyle, perhaps you've got it upside down and backwards.
What if there's no Justin?
As with every blind item, I suspect it's Helen Mirren.
I was thinking the same thing the other day. I'm sure it started out as mostly Sam, but after awhile the "wisdom" in the posts seemed to go down while the f-bombs went up.
I have a friend whose dad says sh*t like Justin's dad says. I believe that he, too, would not be interested in talking to any member of the media. I know the media finds this hard to swallow, but not everyone is seeking 15 minutes of fame. As for Justin's tweets, I've often wondered if they are real. It did occur to me that it's quite the coincidence that all of them fit into the 140-character limit.
I agree - suspicious.
Makes a lot of sense to me.
My ex was doing a shit my mom says on his facebook for a while. After a while it was just like you're either making this up or your mom is a horrible person/alcoholic and we shouldn't be laughing at/encouraging her.
Is this the first time movieline has printed this article? Because I have a weird sensation that I read all of this 6 months ago, and I don't even know anything about shit my dad says. It sounds fake anyway. Most everything is. Stupid generation Y
who cares if its him, or his dad, shit my dad says is some funny 'shit'...
OMG have you just been a figment of some other writer's imagination all this time?? This prospect literally makes me dizzy; I feel like I just fell into the blog equivalent of The Matrix or something.
I think the writer ("Kyle", LOL) of this article has an extremely intelligible stance and I doubt that he even cares if Justin's tweets are real or not, but knows other probably people do. I'm glad some of us question people in the media (if you can even call Justin apart of the "media"), and that we don't blindly accept whatever is told to us.
I thought it was fake from the get-go. But a writer's gotta eat and Justin figured out how to game the system... Sure beats a shit office job.