this is not tom theories discussion

[John Green]

We have an excellent thread started by lindseysubtlyinked to discuss the thisisnottom riddles; I thought here that those of us who've reached the current end could discuss the developing story--if it is a developing story--and the world of that which is not Tom. -John

[Viko]

I know that, but the circles have been showing up in seemingly random places, so they might have some significance.

[Melodie]

This is off-topic, but "This Is Not Tom" anagrams to "It isn't smooth."

[Viko]

Ergo it is a fractal :)

[Stephanie Bingham]

I love, love LOVE the fact that TiNT is including little things from the messageboards from here in the clues.

Also, if it wasn't for TiNT, I probably would've never known about Nerdfighters.

[julione85]

Me too! TiNT led me here! Hooray!

[Melodie]

When was "It isn't smooth" used in a clue? I think I missed it.

[BeKbEk]

Has anyone else read John's message on sparksflyup.com about his participation in TiNT? WHat did you guys think? Do you believe him? DO you believe her? ...

[Brittney]

I'm very confused. Like, I don't want to believe that John is outright lying to us. But it's very hard to believe that he'd write a story based off a bunch of emails a teenage girl sent him - especially when she herself is either lying or mentally ill.

[Melodie]

Here's what I think.

He is writing this new story as a creative project, but he wants us to believe that it's a true story, so we will become more interested or invested in it, and we can be involved in the story through the Internet, like lonelygirl15. There probably isn't a mysterious girl sending mysterious e-mails; John probably made her up so we would think this story is real. It's definitely an interesting experiment.

I mean, we already know that John had an LG15 thing.

[Brittney]

I was already invested in the story, because I thought it was awesome that someone was writing a story that was affected by and involved with its internet readers. If he's pretending it's real in order to manipulate his readers ... well, I just don't understand the justification for that.

[Viko]

When you go back and look at John's original post on this thread, he knew that it was a story (Well, yeah. Because he was writing it.) So I feel like John would be totally fine with making up the story, and the element of YFN being a real person makes us more willing to continue participating and interacting with the story. He already didn't tell us the truth once, so what would make him do that now? Yeah, it is John. He isn't evil (asfarasweknow). I don't think it is important if this girl is real or not. At least not to us. I am willing to suspend my disbelief and feel empathy towards this girl and be very invested in her well-being.

I just watched A Beautiful Mind, so I hope this isn't like that :(

[nazee1228]

believe him , but maybe not her