Last week, I posted a video of "Sam," whose first dating video was chosen by Esquire as the worst on the Internet. "Sam" had been nice enough to give Correntewire a shoutout in one of his recent follow-up videos.

We're in the inconvenient-truth biz around here, so I must 'fess up to a convenient sin of omission.

You heard it here first, folks: Sam's a fake.

Well, he didn't start out as a fake. Remember the Thermians in Galaxy Quest, and how they thought the small-screen actors were real? It's kind of like that.

Except this time, instead of an adorable alien, the guileless one was Esquire.com writer Daniel Murphy, who unwittingly pilloried a fictitious character he found on a movie-promo MySpace page.

I'd feel a little empathy for the self-buffaloed writer, but I'm not sure empathy is his thing. Per Murphy, the kind of woman Sam might meet is "probably fat." And another of his failed-flirt five is, he says, "doing a rather serviceable impression of a man with a traumatic head injury."

So how did this misunderstanding-turned-hoax come about? How did a promo clip for a little-known movie become an internet phenomenon viewed over 75,000 times?

Here's how it happened:

• In 2003, New York-based director Andrew Y. Park cast actor Dennis Hurley (now best known for his popular short film, The Albino Code) as "Sam," in a 16mm short called Perfect Profile
• About a year ago, to give the film a little more exposure, they made a MySpace page for Sam, which included a link to the movie. Anyone who looked at the page in detail, like say someone who was writing about it for a major national media outlet, would have seen that it was a promo for a video.
• Once the article was published, and traffic started pouring in, Park decided to remove Perfect Profile from the MySpace page and enjoy the unexpected ride, fueled by the story being picked up by Fark and Digg
• Dennis was invited to appear on "The Frank Show," a Tuscon-based radio program (audio file here), which extended "Sam's" shelf-life a little
• Dennis is an old friend and colleague of mine, and he and Andrew were nice enough to let us shoot a Corrente-themed episode — which I want to make sure isn't construed as an endorsement on their part of our "boldy shrill" politics — before we helped get the word out about the story behind the story
• With the buzz from the original accidental "hoax" dying down, Andrew decided to release a final meta-video, about Sam going on a date that resulted from his newfound "fame"
• And now Park has come forth with his story about the experience, including a little online anthropology, as he categorizes the various types of feedback that "Sam" received.

Dennis shares his own recollections here:

I found acting as Sam in Andrew Park's short thriller Perfect Profile to be very rewarding, as it was a leading role and a "meaty" leading role, at that. I never imagined the exposure I would get some 5 years after shooting the film in New York City.

We wrapped shooting in 2003. When the film was finally finished in 2006, Andrew and I met for lunch and discussed marketing possibilities for the film. Andrew came up with the idea of giving "Sam" a MySpace page with a dating video. We filmed the dating video, and put it on the page. We gained a handful of unsuspecting MySpace friends, but after a month the friend requests stopped coming and we figured it was time to reveal our "secret." We posted the whole film on the MySpace page, under the dating video. No comments came back, so we just let it be.

Fast forward to January, 2008. Esquire comes out with a list of what they call the 5 worst dating videos online. The article's author, Dan something or other, posted "Sam's" first. Keep in mind that Dan must have found this video, unaware of the actual film on the MySpace page. I was quite surprised that a huge magazine like Esquire was able to let this shoddy research take place and let this fake story slip through the cracks.

The MySpace friend list doubled, as bloggers and MySpacers requested to be Sam's friend and offered him either scathing comments or sympathetic support for his girl troubles.

I took the fact that so many people watched the "dating video" and bought that I was Sam as a nice compliment to my believability as an actor.

I hope that this story will be a good referral and testimonial for me as an actor, as I am still seeking representation.

Having worked frequently with Dennis, I can attest to his gifts as an actor, writer, and genial collaborator.

Dennis and Andrew have teamed up again on The Hayley Project, a soon-to-be-launched online series.

I've "met" Andrew over the phone and e-mail. I'm pretty sure he's real... but is there a real Daniel Murphy? Can we really know for sure?