Gerard Vs. Bear: Who Is This Animal, Anyway?

Brian Raftery | November 17, 2006 9:51 am
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For those of you still slightly bewildered by the Gerard Vs. Bear saga, a quick recap: He (or she) is an anonymous music blogger (or blogette) who enjoys nothing more than smacking around other music bloggers. In the last few weeks, GVB has been posting more than ever, becoming semi-famous enough to inspire some tawdry slash fiction; the whole ordeal is like Primary Colors for the Oink set. So who is Gerard? Our completely speculative guesses after the click-through.

Name: Chris Ott Blog: Shallow Rewards Why he might be Gerard: He pens the Village Voice‘s “Blogwash” column, so he probably has plenty of leftover spleen to vent even after his Voice stories hit the stands. Why he’s probably not Gerard: Too busy picking message-board fights with the guy from the Decemberists and his girlfriend.

Name: “Ryan Catbirdseat” Blog: The Catbirdseat Why he might be Gerard: Like to poke fun at bloggers and indie-rockers; runs a record label, meaning that if he were to rail against music bloggers, he’d want to remain anonymous. Why he might not be Gerard: Seems to be having too much fun trying to figure out who Gerard is.

Name: Ryan Irvine Blog: Good Hodgkins Why he might be Gerard: He’s Gerard’s biggest target, which could be a self-perpetuated attempt at misdirection. Why he’s probably not: Gerard really goes after this guy–if it is him, there’s some serious self-loathing going on here.

Name: Brian Raftery and Maura Johnston Blog: Idolator Why they might be Gerard: It could be a brilliant ploy to boost coverage of the oft-snoozy music-blog world. Why it’s probably not them: They’re nowhere near their 12-posts-a-day count as it is. Plus, they’re not that brilliant.