Last week we posted a piece by the author Tao Lin. Sad to say, we did not do our proper research before going ahead with publication. We regret making such an editorial oversight. We particularly lament having done so at such an early stage in our tenure, doing irreparable damage to our reputation. We believed that Tao Lin had actually played Ghostbusters, the game released in 1984 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This was not correct. Our sources informed us that Tao Lin has never even played the NES, let alone any of the franchised media properties licensed by Nintendo.

We believed we could trust an author who, in the past, had been so candid about his drug use and sexual improprieties. Upon further investigation, we found that none of those things really happened, either. Mr. Lin became famous for a style of writing known as “autofiction” that implies the work contains essential truths and only alters unimportant details for convenience’s sake. We must admit that we were hoodwinked by this literary sleight of hand, and it was not until after the Ghostbusters backlash did we bother to fact-check any of the claims Mr. Lin made in his writing or on social media. He is not, after all, chronically ill, nor had he been an abusive partner in the past. In reality, he has never even been to the city of Taipei and never imbibed anything stronger than Tylenol.

The “real” Tao Lin is a straight “B” student from Princeton, New Jersey named Timothy Lee, holder of a BA in communications and business management from Rutgers University. He currently lives with his wife Amy and two kids in the town of South Orange. Our attempts to pester his family for more details were not successful, but we will keep our readers abreast of any developments in the matter. Sincerest apologies go out to our readership.

-The Editors at Sentenced Manhattan