A case of (happily) mistaken identity.

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It's sort of a case of how to get famous without really trying. By today who hasn't read (and forgotten) Kurt Vonnegut's famous Sunscreen speech? The speech was supposedly delivered to the 1997 MIT graduating class at their commencement ceremony. But of course Vonnegut neither wrote, nor delivered, the speech. It was actually the handiwork of a Chicago newspaper columnist named Mary Schmich. The speech is a good read, but the story of its transformation (here as well) from a column by an unknown columnist to a speech by a famous writer may even be better. And Mary Schmich's reflections on the whole issue are worth reading as well. What interests me here is the fact that this was hardly a hoax at all. It doesn't seem that anyone intended to act under false pretenses. Instead it's perhaps an excellent example of how the internet allows misinformation to flourish.

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