The Jonathan Phenomenon

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that there seem to be a few new posters here, who may not be familiar with some of the tangenital issues that occasionally crop up on alt.conspiracy.sunnydale and related newsgroups. I thought it might be a good idea for me to post an itroduction to the Jonathan phenomenon, since it's what got me into Sunnydale studies. Maybe others can cover the LA darkness, Wolfram & Hart, etc.

Basically, around 2000 a Los Angeles media studies tutor noted an odd phenomenon; a statistically significant number of students were putting the name "Jonathan Levinson" into the cast of films such as The Matrix, Star Wars, etc. instead of the real stars. When questioned none of the students could explain why this had happened. Subsequently it was learned that similar false results were being observed in other areas such as History of Computing (a jaw-dropping 37% of students believed that he had invented the Internet), medicine, and musicology. It was also established that the phenomenon was global; I've fallen victim to it myself more than once.

When memory-recovery techniques are used on some "victims" (if that's the right word) they began to remember more of this mysterious character; agile, strong, impeccably groomed, in his late teens or early twenties, and apparently a master of a dazzling range of arts and skills. None of the Jonathan Levinsons found by an extensive search matched this description. The phenomenon continues to this day.

Following the Sunnydale Collapse more interest was focused on the town, and in particular on the passengers on The Last Bus and in the 1999 Sunnydale High graduating class. It was learned that a Jonathan Levinson was a member of this class, and in tests more than 63% of subjects recognized his yearbook photograph as the mysterious figure they remembered.

Little is known of the real Levinson; he does not appear to have attended college, and was a wanted criminal at the time of the Sunnydale Collapse. Interestingly, he was arrested (a citizens arrest) by Buffy Summers, one of the Last Bus passengers and a former classmate (two others on the bus, Alexander Harris and Willow Rosenberg, were also 1999 graduates, and the driver of The Bus, Dr. Rupert Giles, was of course the school librarian in 1999), but later escaped. His name has subsequently been added to the list of those killed in the Collapse, though there is no evidence to confirm this.

It's a fascinating and frustrating story, especially for those of us cursed with bad memories and an unfortunate habit of calling people "Jonathan" instead of their real names, and its global nature suggests an experiment in mind control, possibly via low-frequency radio waves.

Here's a picture of the real Levinson - not sure what the occasion was.