Fake Steve: 'like Jim Carrey in the Mask'

Last Modified: 07 Aug 2007
By: Channel 4 News

Man behind the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs tells all.

The man behind the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, has described how donning the persona of the Apple Computer boss was like being Jim Carrey in the movie 'The Mask'.

Purporting to be the online diary of Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs, the blog made cruel fun of Apple, its iPod and iPhone products, the music industry and the US tech industry in general.

But after 14 months Forbes executive editor Daniel Lyons was unmasked by a New York Times reporter, Brad Stone.

"Fake Steve is way more popular than I am," Lyons (pictured right) told the Reuters news agency. "It's like that Jim Carrey movie 'The Mask', when he puts the mask on he's charming and funny and everyone likes him and when he takes it off he's just a schmuck."

Fake Steve and friends

In the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, Lyons had pet names for various industry figures. So Microsoft founder was sometimes referred to as 'Beastmaster', Google chief executive Eric Schmidt as 'Squirrel Boy' and Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Mossberg as 'Goatberg'.

Elsewhere in his blog there are a number of references to Oracle chief Larry Ellison who at one stage is a promised stand-in blogger while Fake Steve takes a holiday. Before signing off, Fake Steve warns: " I warn you: Larry is nuts. Okay? Caveat lector, as they say in Polish."

Lyons said the venture started as a joke between friends and a way of experimenting with a new medium. But soon he was hooked.

"It's very addictive, blogging is very addictive, finding an audience like that, a readership like that.

"The voice just kept coming to me. I'd wake up and something would happen and I'd know here's what Fake Steve would think about that."

Fake Steve came clean on Sunday with a blog entitled: 'Damn, I'm so busted, yo'.