weird. Hard to imagine it would happen in a place too unlike NZ. Maybe an Eastern European country. Maybe another South Pacific Island. What interest did these people have in file-sharing?
I asked one guy, Caucasian, suited, check tie, Chinese wife, spoilt son, ice-cream dribbling down his chinny chin, So, what’s your interest in being here?
He answered, It is an historic occasion. He wanted to be here to witness it. … With his wife? With his son? … It didn’t make sense but then he made sense by letting me go first in the press of bodies to be closer to my son… Kim amped up the atmos, saying ice-cream for all but only ten punnets will have Golden Tickets. Only ten lucky ice-cream eaters will go to the Dotcom Mansion – rented – for the Mega Launch…
Bloomberg TV interviewed me. Who? You know, business TV, said the worried looking reporter. My every answer seemed to make him more worried.
Dotcom. Pirate or Pioneer?
Neither. Showman.
Criminal?
Not in terms of the law.
The sort of person NZ needs more of?
Definitely. Less of those John Key type characters. (I meant fewer. They are already less.)
…
It was a nostalgic event, harking back to NZ’s traditional support for underdoghood, Unterhundkeit. But Kim? Or harkening back to Father Christmas creepiness. A young woman in front had her lipstick out to make a heart for Kim. & da Family? or just his big heart.
Because I believe he is perceived to have a big heart.
And I observed him working. Mopping his brow with a purpose-provided flannel. Smiling in just the same triangle of teeth like Megamind each photo. And being personable to every caller. The self-promoters and the zealous… but the zealous whats? whos?
Who believes in Kim Dotcom?
I didn’t get to press my business card into his hand – his surprisingly not-chubby hand – and say, Call me. But I saw the event was for the crowd to get the measure of him and not for him to get theirs. In other words, celebrity’s indifference.
Q. high-fived him on his second or third tour for an ice-cream. Each time I checked the bottom of the punnet for the Wonka factor.
Kim. He is a hyper-real in a land of the long white-out. Even when he says that with Mega that long white cloud just got longer and the part-Chinese boy in front asks, What does that mean?
