It's Only Funny Until Someone Gets a Book Deal

In August, Bill Wasik, author of And Then There's This, a book about the spread of memes on the Internet, talked to Portfolio.com about books based on blogs—you know, Stuff White People Like, I Can Has Cheezburger?, This Is Why You're Fat, etc. "It does seem like a real crapshoot for them, doesn't it?" Wasik said. "In that the pattern of the uptake of those sorts of memes, of those sorts of sites, tend to be swift. But then there tends to be a big drop-off in the interest in those things. This to me seems like an example—one of many examples—of the old media panicking when panicking isn't what's called for."

The Onion—America's best fake newspaper (better luck next time, New York Post)—would seem to agree. In a Science & Technology briefing this week, the paper of fake record reports, "Man's Facebook Status Given Book Deal." Apparently a 24-year-old New Yorker named Gerard Dillow got a $250,000 deal with HarperCollins (publishers of This Is Why You're Fat) for his 56-minute-old Facebook update, "In it to win it, suckas." (According to The Onion, the book will also feature "a 140-character forward by Shit My Dad Says author Justin Halpern.")

All very funny—yes, publishers do appear willing to throw cash after the flimsiest ideas and loosely strung-together words on the Internet—but as satire, a little too close to reality. In June, Publishers Weekly's Rachel Deahl reported that two agents, United Talent Agency's Howie Sanders and New York literary agent Christy Fletcher, were trying to sell a friend's Facebook update—for real.

That option-worthy update: "Lisa Hamilton Daly's Pomeranian raided Chinese takeout bag overnight, opened and ate a fortune cookie. Her fortune: You have strong spiritual powers, and you should develop them." (The PW link originally appeared on Gawker's Defamer vertical.)

Can agents option the sound of someone slamming his head on his desk in disgust? That's gotta be worth a few thousand, right?