An internet war has broken out in Thailand between the living legend Mr Stickman and the new guy in town John Galt.
The Asia Bugle wrote this last week
Stickman stalked
One of the talking points of the week has been the removal of the stickmanbangkok.com site from the net. The reason for its demise is that what many of us first thought was a bit of fun has actually turned very nasty.
The notstickman site started as though it was a mickey take on Stickman and I think most of us were mildly amused. I even posted a link to the site here a few weeks ago. However, I did not realize, nor I fear did many people, that this guy is in reality a stalker. And sadly, as with most stalkers, he has eventually become dangerous.
He started posting personal information about Stickman and ended up publishing pictures of his co-workers and trying to identify the school were Stickman works. Suddenly we realized this was not a piss take, but somebody trying to harm Stickman.
The web boards were full of supporters of both sides, although the consensus was that notstickman, also called John Galt, was out of order. And I agree.
Stickman is not always right; in fact he is sometimes very wrong and a number of bar owners have taken grave exception to the misinformation he has posted. I don’t believe the inaccuracies were anything other than a slip-up, and to be fair, I doubt they ever did anybody any real damage. It goes back to the old adage that there is only one thing worse than bad publicity, and that’s no publicity.
Most websites try hard to get their facts right, but I’m sure that even I get it wrong, sometimes. The problem for Stickman is that he has a serious day job as a teacher, and anybody who thinks you can live off a site such as Stickman or Baronbonk, is in cloud cuckoo land. Maybe Galt is! And that has led to massive speculation over John Galt’s true identity.
Maybe here I should say a little about pen names, pseudonyms, nom de plume and the like.
There are many legitimate reasons for using a pen name. Indeed, some of the most famous authors in history wrote under an assumed name – Mark Twain, C S Forester and Voltaire are three that spring to mind. It is an old tradition, as is the practice of not exposing the identities of those behind the names. The truth is that many people know who Stickman is, just as many others know the barons of Baronbonk. John Galt seems to be anxious to hide his identity, while abusing the right of Stickman to do the same.
Very early on it was discovered that Galt’s real name is Keith Summers and that he has a Thai business selling LED lighting electronics and controls, and runs a website named asiansignals.com. It was then found out that he is also makes a living, like many other farangs here, as an Ebay trader.
A recent email to me reveals more. Keith Summers first came to Thailand in 2001 on a mantour.com package. This is essentially a company that promotes sex tours to Thailand and it seems Keith liked what he found. There are several pictures of him on the website including the obscured one here. He looks harmless enough so I am not sure what his gripe is.
I understand Stickman’s site may soon be back up. Summers has clearly broken several Thai laws and could be dealt with legally. Reading Keith’s latest ravings, he seems to be most upset by the fact that Stickman won’t even acknowledge him.
