I was happy today, at my regular job (yes, I do have one.. to answer that question) when I decided to check my mentions on FJM. To my surprise, my name was linked with a pretty damning article posted by the people at Deadspin about Sarah Phillips, a writer for ESPN.com, who allegedly conspired to steal a 19-year olds highly successful page on Facebook.. to the tune of nearly 800K likes.

I just want to give my side of the story, and why my name popped up in this article. Because my name is very important to me.. and this was NOT what I anticipated.

I was offered the opportunity to write material for a new website that was being proposed geared towards mixing sports with comedy. As an avid sports fan who likes to crack jokes - often times corny, sometimes awful - this appealed to me. Especially given the fact the person with this idea writes for ESPN.com. I figured what better way to get that recognition than by writing under an umbrella with actual ESPN talent. I was offered the same perks you have probably read about in the article, namely being paid on the page views the site would generate - lofty numbers were thrown around in the neighborhood of $100K a year. Which, to write jokes, seems like a good deal right?

I NEVER had any idea that behind the scenes a 19-year old kid with a lot of talent was having his account jacked from him. All that was ever said to me was "We are looking to add contributors to this site to fuel quick growth and page views..." and often times this particular Facebook account was mentioned as a leading contributor on this future site due to the sheer amount of traffic he could possibly bring to the site. Along with him, myself and another parody account (@_Happy_Gilmore) were pegged as the driving force to make this site grow .. NEVER were we knowing that all along this was in a better word, a giant scam. Luckily it never progressed this far with my own account .. and I didn't suffer the same unfortunate repercussions of the individual named in the article.

I just want to attempt to clear my name of any wrong doing, hopefully move on from this article.. and continue to post semi-entertaining content from Faux John Madden.

Thank you,
Brent

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