Why We Can't Have Nice Things: That Hilarious Fake Guy Fieri Menu Is Just a Bunch of Stolen Twitter Jokes
Last night Gawker received a tip from a person claiming to be friends with the graphic designer allegedly responsible for the Internet's new favorite thing: The fake Guy Fieri menu currently parked at GuysAmericanKitchenAndBar.com.
According to this friend, Bryan Mytko, the NYC-based programmer who claims to have purchased the restaurant's domain after Fieri "forgot" to, is a "dick" for not bothering to credit Pauline Vassiliadis with having actually designed the uproarious menu that is making everyone ROTFLTAO.
But it seems the dick hole goes even deeper than that.
Late last night, "weird twitter" ambassador @boring_as_heck noted that many of the jokes that appear on the faux-menu have been lifted wholesale from various Twitter accounts.
A more detailed assessment of the plagiarism accusation by @a_girl_irl shows that approximately 50% of all the yucks were "borrowed" from a just one Twitter account: @DinkMagic.
"[M]aking fun of guy fieri is literally the easiest thing on earth to do and that guy just ripped people off instead," @DinkMagic tweeted after the intellectual theft was brought to their attention.
For his part, Mytko released a statement (since deleted, but still online) asserting that he didn't bother mentioning Vassiliadis initially because "she doesn't have twitter," and also didn't think his prank would blow up as big as it did.
He continues:
I barely use Twitter and have no idea who @DadBoner @a_girl_irl @DinkMagic @Lowenaffchen etc. are. If any of the content was stolen from them, well, I have no idea what to tell you. Laugh at the menu or don't. There are more important things to stress over in life than Twitter.
Back on his Twitter feed, Mytko concluded a night of responding to aggrieved joke authors and their supporters by saying, "and I hope all you haters picked up a few followers to help fill that empty void in your soul."
Vassiliadis has been reached for comment, but has yet to respond. This post will be updated if and when she does.