April 1st, 2009 | 
Author: The members of the northlondonhippy collective have decided to finally disclose the truth about this website and the internet character we’ve created, called “the northlondonhippy”.
About 5 and a half years ago, a group of writers and artists decided to band together to create a fictitious blogger that would be both convincing yet weird.
Our experiment in online fakery has been very successful as no one ever doubted “the northlondonhippy” wasn’t real. We think its down to the mix of humour, drama and pathos that we’ve used to construct “the northlondonhippy”, but we’re not really sure.
Who belongs to the northlondonhippy collective?
We are group of 30-something media types who thought it would be amusing to create a fictional online loser and make-believe hippy, mainly to for our own entertainment.
We never expected to keep it up for so many years, though if you look at the frequency of posts to this site, we haven’t really worked very hard.
We all share responsibilities for working on the website, as well as “the northlondonhippy’s” other online activities, such as “his” Twitter presence and “his” videos for YouTube. We all take turns answering “his” fan emails too.
One of us runs the actual website side of things, the rest of our group write the content that keep the narrative of “the northlondonhippy” alive.
While “the northlondonhippy” is a creation, there are aspects of him that we’ve borrowed from our own personalities. For example, I’m sure it won’t surprise anyone to find out that we’re all prolific cannabis smokers.
A few of us are journalists, a few work in tv production, several work for internet-based media firms, one is independently wealthy and yet another is currently between jobs. And one of us is a minor celebrity and yes, you would probably recognise his name. We are an eclectic collection of smug, clever and educated men (and one woman) who have built up a rather loyal following online as “the northlondonhippy”.
When we came up with the idea of a northlondonhippy branded RooR bong, we never thought anyone would be that interested, but it turns out it has sold outrageously well. So well that we’ve had to set up a limited company (the northlondonhippy collective ltd) to deal with the profits from the licensing and sales, plus VAT and now corporate tax.
Now that you are thinking about it, you’re starting to remember all the tiny little clues you’ve missed that were unintentionally left in the hippy’s writing.
If you go back and re-read a bit, you’ll soon spot that the entries were written by more than one person. Once you know the truth, its blatantly obvious that this has all been an elaborate hoax. No one could really be as cantankerous, sad and twisted as “the northlondonhippy”, yet still manage function in normal society.
The way the character is drawn, we thought it would be obvious to any semi-intelligent reader that “the northlondonhippy” is a completely fictional construct; an imaginary being.
I guess ultimately the joke is on us because we’ve had to do this for so long, but now it has grown laborious and tiresome. We hoped someone would discover and reveal the truth, but that hasn’t happened, so we decided to do the “big reveal” ourselves.
We’re still working on what to do next with “the northlondonhippy” brand. Now that we’ve built and established it, it would be a shame to just let it go.
We’re thinking either northlondonhippy tee-shirts or a northlondonhippy theme park for hedonistic adults in the Netherlands. Its still too early to say.
Thank you everyone for your support and we hope you’re not too mad at us now that we’ve finally let you in on our little joke.
With thanks for 5 fun years,
- the northlondonhippy collective (ltd)
