Unemployed 20-Something Totally Validated By Marginal Celebrity's Fleeting Acknowledgement of Her Existence

Preface: This really happened. After it did, I wrote the piece below and sent it to Todd Hanson who responded with this:

--becca,
You are REALLY OVERREACTING. I am not even REMOTELY anything you could call even a MARGINAL "celebrity." But thank you so very much for the compliment just the same.
Your piece was funny.
good luck out there,
regards,
H

Awesome.

Unemployed 20-Something Totally Validated By Marginal Celebrity’s Fleeting Acknowledgement of Her Existence”

August 2, 2010

CHICAGO, IL – In an atypical break from ennui, part-time babysitter, vintage apparel retailer, and occasional freelance writer, Chicagoan Rebecca O’Neal, 23, shared good news with her unimpressed Twitter followers early Monday morning: The Onion’s Todd Hanson had become peripherally aware of her insular existence.

After stumbling upon O’Neal’s sycophantic and stylistically hilarious online review of Hanson’s contribution to And Here’s The Kicker: Conversations with 21 Humor Writers On Their Craft, a book largely unfamiliar to non-comedy nerds, Seattle area man Peter Greyy posted its link to Hanson’s Facebook profile. Hanson, in what has been interpreted as an equal parts earnest and sarcastic response, replied, “I have decided beccaBeccaBECCA [Rebecca O’Neal’s online username] is my new favorite writer.”

Reflecting the indifference of the majority of O’Neal’s Twitter followers, @mallrat87 had this to say of Rebecca’s elation at Hanson’s acknowledgement, “@becca_oneal: Who is Todd Hanson?” Users of aspecialthing.com, the web forum on which O’Neal’s review was posted, equally rabid comedy fans and sharers of Rebecca’s apparently esoteric tastes in humor, bandied congratulations on their web peer. In a private message to O’Neal, AST user R-Rated wrote, “OMG! Todd Hanson saw your post! You’re totally internet famous now!”

Rebecca, happy to know a review she had expected to go unread and ignored found its way to Hanson, expressed her surprise and joy to her mother, who beamed with confusion and pride. “Becky is so talented. I’m glad that Hanson fellow thinks so too. He seems like an important man. I see copies of The Onionat libraries sometimes. Maybe now she’ll leave the house more often.”

O’Neal assured reporters that there was a “fat chance” of that happening as she blogged about her unlikely brush with celebrity.