M Otis Beard
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M Otis Beard (born July 1, 1964) is a poet and an enigmatic Kibologist noted for his online writing and pranks, particularly on Usenet. Beard has wreaked havoc in a number of Usenet newsgroups with his trolling and bizarre social experiments. He is known to use various pseudonyms and sock puppet personae, usually anagrams of his own name, such as New Age guru Ted "Rib" Amos and physicist Dr. Tom Basie, PhD. He is also rumored to be one member of the shadowy group perpetrating online disinformational performance art under the nom de guerre "Andrea Chen".
Beard's best known outing was the faking of his own suicide in September of 1999 on the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.kibology, an act which spread ripples of shock, havoc, anger, and black humor through an online community which, ironically, itself consists of people notorious for their trolling of online communities.
