by Jon Roig (jonathar@gas.uug.arizona.edu)

About a year ago, I set up a homepage for myself at the University of Arizona. I was extremely unfamiliar with the evil ways of HTML, so instead of creating an original page I ripped off the official New Kids on the Block homepage and changed some of the information.

I assumed nobody would take it seriously- It looked like an obvious joke. I was wrong.

So began the great Jonathan Knight project - a year long experiment in the frightening internet neighborhood where technology, the NKOTB, and their leftover fans all collide. Since its creation, I have received almost a thousand hits (if you believe the counter thingy) and a few dozen pieces of email from Jon Knight's acolytes. The page reads something like this:

"Since quitting the group during the Face The Music tour, not much is known about what has become of the oldest NKOTB'er.

"We've recently heard that Jon has changed his last name to Roig and is studying at University of Arizona, but some have said he's living in Tucson, with no plans to return to show business anytime soon. Either way, we certainly hope he has recovered by now from that terrible horse riding accident!"

There is, of course, a picture of "me" and some vital statistics about "my" life and times. The page is at http://radon.gas.uug.arizona.edu/~jonathar, if you want to check it out, but really it was a product of random boredom more than any deep artistic mission. But the response to the page overwhelmed me; to be honest I was shocked.

People really will believe anything they see on the web, but given all the bizarre stuff I've seen out there in cyberspace, it's not really hard to understand. The world wide web is fast becoming the premier self-publishing medium, especially here in the university community. Anyone can publish anything they feel like, and that odd collage of personal pages, corporate web sites, fan worship areas, and miscellaneous debris creates a landscape where everything is so hard to believe, one has no choice but to take it all seriously.

Wouldn't all the crap make it more likely that we wouldn't believe anything that comes through the browser? Well, no... not necessarily. The world wide web is a medium almost entirely free of irony. If you don't believe me, take a tour through the seedier side of the internet with Mirsky's Worst of the Web. I've seen enough IRC wedding announcements, girlfriend tributes, and gang homepages (yes, they exist) to warp my brain forever. These people are serious, as serious as cancer.

It's possible, of course, that I'm not giving the good citizens of cyberspace enough credit. Maybe they're as clever as I think I am, and they're all playing their weird jokes on the world, too. But what are the odds that they're ALL joking?

In the end, I'm not sure it makes any difference what intent the other homepage creators had. If some random stranger tells you a great story at the park in the middle of the night, it's generally more fun to believe it. I mean, why not? Just like stories you can never verify, there is no certificate of authenticity for the web, no independent review board. I mean, who are you going to believe - me or the New Kids fanclub info? How could they establish more credibility than Jonathan Knight Himself?

It's still hard to understand what is going on with the page and what compelled people to email me about it. The vital statistics are all wrong, and I mean really way off - I listed Chris Hardwick, my soul-brother and host of MTV's "Singled Out," as a member of my immediate family. Responses ranged from crazed New Kids fans correcting my vital stats to people who obviously understood it was a joke to people concerned about my recent accident.

Sabrina, a student at UCLA, wrote a message entitled "SO, IS HE MARRIED YET?"

"I know the answer must be no because I was meant to be his," she continued. "My best friend over here wants to know if his brother is currently attached, and if not, maybe we'll have a chance to be sisters-in-law!"

Besides the email, there seems to be more empirical evidence that people believe everything they read on the internet. Computer crime is fast on the rise, especially swindles involving fake investments people read about in the net. I can't count the number of times Eddie Vedder has died. People, for whatever reason, trust the media. It's like the all-pervasive "As Seen on TV" guarantee of quality - if it's on a screen somewhere, then dammit, it must be good.

So, by the time I got mail from Angela, a student at the University of Miami, I wasn't really shocked anymore. Tributes from fans par for the course on the Jonathan Knight project. "Hello! Just sitting here scanning the web on a typical Thursday school night," she expounded. "When suddenly I thought, what if I write in NKOTB, the name of the music band I went crazy over while I was in middle school.

"The band I camped out for tickets for, the ones I always wanted to meet. Then I find this and think, there's no harm in trying :) Just a line to say "HOLA" and let me say that although I've grown out of my NKOTB phase, I still keep all my tapes and t-shirts, etc. . .and sometimes listen and remember the good'ol days when the most important things to me were Jon, Joe, Danny, Jordan, and Donnie. Now, many years later I smile back and remember all of the good memories I now have because of you guys. "

Odd, to say the least... And I'm not sure what to do with it all. I thought about responding, but I was paralyzed with confusion. Seeking answers, I contacted David Pescovitz, a contributing editor to Wired magazine and co-author of the forthcoming book Reality Check (HardWired, 1996).

"While digital technology and the Web make it fun and easy to invent your own reality and invite the world in for a visit, lots of people still believe everything they see on the screen," he explains. "Those people need to learn the techniques of media creation too, or else they'll keep mindlessly sucking up whatever they're fed and we'll have to change the name of the era to the misinformation age."

Or as Elizabeth Parker, a local New Kids scholar, cryptically put it, "People just wanna believe."

The "real" Jonathan Knight could not be contacted for this story.

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