Once upon a time, human beings invented the art of crafting make-believe stories. For many centuries, these make-believe stories were the primary means of transmitting cultural knowledge from one generation to the next.
In the 20th Century, the art of crafting make-believe stories evolved from the bardic arts to become high-tech multimedia presentations in radio dramas, motion pictures, and television.
Now the entertainment industry is learning how to exploit the Internet to raise make-believe to the next level. Just as Sasha Baron-Cohen has demonstrated how to blur the boundaries between fantasy and reality, so too have many erstwhile performers turned to the Internet to do the same.
Ron Livinsgton may be a real actor who appears in conventional entertainment media, wherein he portrays a fictional character in a fictional world. But through the artifice of Wikipedia and the Internet, the invisible hand of yet another mysterious author has produced a fantastic episode that bridges the misty divide between fact and fiction.
We would all be wise to heed these sage words of advice:
"Be ye not bamboozled." --The Big Bamboozler
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