FOREVER ONYMOUS

The internet’s greatest mystery is solved! It wasn’t me who outed Jeremy. And it wasn’t Andrew Bolt. It was Jeremy himself, back in December 2004, after his then-employer prevailed upon him to close a blog (MelbourneLefty) that was felt to be professionally – how shall we say – awkward. The old site identified the author as "Jeremy" and featured various elements that gave away the author's surname.

Within days, Jeremy launched his new, anonymous site, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so without dropping massive hints to everyone familiar with his previous blog:

My initial notion is to call it "AnonymousLefty", which could bear a passing resemblance to another blog the name of which must never be uttered anywhere near this blog, ever, for certain specific reasons.

If that wasn’t enough of a clue to his identity, he then posted this in a comments section elsewhere:

MrLefty (wjsear@#####.com.au)Says: 
December 26th, 2004 at 6:09 pm e 


Hi Yobbo

You know how M*lbourneLefty is gone?

Strangely enough, there’s a new blog called AnonymousLefty which appeared at just about the same time as ML went offline!

Amazing coincidence.

I’d be happy to take any links over you might previously have been directing to ML…

cheers!

As the years went by, Jeremy disregarded his previous self-exposing antics and convinced himself that he was the victim of “stalkers”. Alcohol only contributed to his delusions, as a drinking partner relates:

I was particularly disappointed to see that, having had numerous beers with Mr Sear where he talked about the nastiness of campaigns to ‘out’ him.

It helps him forget.

Update: TimT in comments: "Isn't this old news?" Yes, it is, which is why I can't understand the Beck-is-a-stalker-who-outed-Jeremy nonsense. Here's Jeremy's description of his stalking and outing:

Christmas 2004: Melbourne Lefty blog exposed to my then employer, deleted, and then hijacked by some nefarious fellow with a business selling chemical cures for impotence. (Whereas under me the blog had just caused impotence.)

Christmas 2005: Having pieced together a reasonable guess at my identity from the revelation that my name was Jeremy and that I'd just gone to the Victorian Bar, certain (then ironically anonymous themselves) bloggers launch a campaign to publicise my full name far and wide, whether I want to use a pseudonym or not.

Christmas 2006: Having spent the previous month pretending to be me around the internet, my new stalker deletes my blogs and steals the URLs.

In March 2006 Jeremy named one of the previously anonymous stalkers:

And finally, of course, the whole context of this is my objecting to my material being used by Iain Hall in his relentless stalking campaign against me.

Gee, Jeremy must think he's the victim of a conspiracy. (Click the link immediately above and read the comments; they're a hoot. And note the number of removed comments as Jeremy tried to collect his thoughts.)