Robin Bougie
Posted February 17, 2005
Either in their ’40s noir cinema incarnation, or as modern day gumshoes, detectives are pretty low-key and don’t usually announce their presence by yelling out to anyone who will listen about their ability to solve crimes, but a 60 year old Wisconsin man named Ed Lake who is better known to photoshop devotees as “The Fake Detective”, does just that on his beat — the internet.
This hired gun works pro-bono and is not shy about screaming out his name and ability to solve some of the most creative mysteries on the net. He does it on his website and his claim to underground fame is that Ed uses all his free time debunking fake and photoshopped nudes of celebrities that he finds in news groups and in other shadowy online alleyways.
All retirees need some kinda hobby, and for Ed it’s “Protecting the innocent, defending the truth, and recovering the sullied reputations of beautiful damsels in distress”, or so he says in his site’s mission statement. This is a elderly man who doesn’t like to see his favorite female performers, or any celeb ladies taken advantage of digitally by underhanded hackers. There are many notable female actresses, singers, or any other manner of celebrity being disrobed and digitally raped according to Ed, and the most predominant victim, is none other than Gillian (X-FILES) Anderson.
“There are at least 500 nude fakes of Gillian Anderson out there, and she’d never pose in the nude,” says Ed who first started his pornographic crusade of internet chivalry because of the stoic actress. “One day I came across some pictures of Gillian that didn’t look real,” he says, “I couldn’t believe she would pose that way. I looked them over and found out that three of them had the same head shot. I decided to let everybody else in the world know about it, and I created the Fake Detective.”
Anderson, unlike many mainstream female movie stars, couldn’t give a shit about the fake nudes one way or another. “She has no feelings about it,” reported her publicist, “You have to let so much go, and this is not hard.”
But some people don’t appreciate the Fake Dick’s efforts. “On the one hand, he gives a lot of credit to manipulators for managing to fool a lot of people, but at the same time, he’s really ruining the magic of this whole thing,” said ‘Trixy’ an amateur faker of photos, “It’s a little like someone ruining a joke, or telling you the ending of a movie. Sometimes you don’t want to know how the rabbit got in the hat. He doesn’t understand that.”
Most of the time, any given fake is really easy to spot, perhaps because it was poorly tampered with to begin with, or because it’s simply unrealistic. Bouncy teen heart throb Britney Spears has had her perky anus cornholed thousands of times in this fake-photo world, and I just saw Celine Dion while surfing for porn last night — the diva was resplendent with an 8 inch cock and pendulous shaved balls!
But these humorous and oddball photochops aren’t the pictures that The Fake Detective is the most concerned about. It’s the hoaxes that try hard to make viewers think they are looking at an actual actress in a compromising position. Many times this means only a shy little nipple poking out, or stranger still, won’t even concern nudity whatsoever. It’s all about the thrill of the hoax, and sometimes making the picture seem as plausible as possible is the key to a successful photo-fake. It’s a new form of post modern art, and the Fake Detective is its ultimate critic, assigning grades to the every photographic myth that he debunks.
For years, Ed Lake toiled in near total obscurity, tirelessly honing his craft with the help of visitors to his site, but since being featured in Wired magazine late last year he’s found himself happily enjoying a few fleeting seconds of fame. One can only imagine that being brought out of his moldy basement and into the limelight (however briefly) is only going to strengthen his resolve to “do the right thing,” and bring fakers to justice.
It’s a (not so) tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
(The Fake Detective has politely asked for us to not to provide a link to his site, but you can find it easily enough simply by googling him. Be aware that his site is obviously NSFW.)
Category: MoviesTags: cons,
detectives,
Ed Lake,
Fake Detectives,
fakes,
Gillian Anderson,
hoaxes,
Midwest,
photography,
photoshop,
porn,
postmodernism,
the ladies,
Wisconsin
Comments
What, it’s June already? I’m sure a I had a whole year here a minute ago. In any case, summer means humidity, allergies, and a sad lack of home AC. This year, it also means squirrels in the roof (don’t ask. No, really).
June 12th, 2009 @ 5:43 am
the fake detective is a waste of time, bec the fakers tell everyone that the photos are fake,hahaha!…..he has discovered something that the rest of the world already knows!!!! wake up to yourself fake detective