If you're an obsessive Blink-182 fan (like some of us around here are), then you probably check out Mark Hoppus' blog on a daily basis.
And if you're a Blink-182 fan who's obsessed with all things viral and mysterious (like some of us here), well, then you probably lost your mind on Tuesday.
That's when Hoppus posted a series of dots and dashes on his blog, Hi My Name Is Mark, setting off an online stampede that had fans pulling out their hair (and their pocket translators). Were the marks actually some form of MIDI notes? Did they contain hidden information about Blink's much-anticipated new album? Was this some sort of throwback to Coldplay's X&Y Baudot code thingamajig?
Just what was Hoppus trying to tell us?!?!
Well, as it turns out, he was mostly just messing with us. See, the dots and dashes were Morse code, and when fans plugged them into online translators, they got some form of the following message: "TREADTEINUNEEDTUNDERTANDRECDETLINKTAETII" Clever fans began picking the string of letters apart, and what they discovered had them slapping their foreheads.
Hoppus publishes on Wordpress, which converted some of his dots and/or dashes into characters and/or hyphens, therefore mucking the whole thing up a bit, but roughly translated, the message seemed to say, "To Read This, You Need To Understand Morse Code. Blink-182."
Now, not only is that brilliant, it's also hilarious. But, was Hoppus's Morse Mystery all just an elaborate prank? To find out, we shot him an e-mail, saying we were confounded and slightly amazed by the whole thing. And he replied with the following:
"Awesome. It says something like, 'To read this you need to understand Morse code. Blink-182.' "
So, there you have it, Blink obsessives. Straight from the man himself. Feel free to return to your normal lives. Or, you know, your semi-normal ones.
This report is from MTV News.
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