Reclusive Artist / Other

• While most of the various writers and staff members for Echo (and related projects like Adastra (2018)) have social media and presence there, zero is known about the main project head, "Howly". He is known to be in a relationship with "Zeke the Tiger" (notable for being Malcolm Ray's fursona; this is supported by the Twitter account occasionally retweeting from him) and that he "usurped" control of the discord server from the Patreon creator "Injy"... and that's it.
• Russian mathematical genius Grigori Perelman is notorious for his refusal to travel abroad to accept prestigious awards (including one with a $1,000,000 prize), or even leaving his tiny St. Petersburg apartment at all. Reportedly, he can stay indoors for weeks, shuns personal contact with other people, and refuses to speak to anyone but his mother. All of this is enough to declare him the patron saint of nerddom.
  • Pioneering physical scientist Henry Cavendish and theoretical physicist Paul Dirac were similar. Dirac preferred solitude and hated socializing, and Cavendish hated all forms of personal contact, instructing his servants to ignore his presence if they encountered him and communicate only by notes.
• Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. While there are many theories as to the identity of this individual (or, if they're even one person), they remained anonymous before disappearing the first few years after Bitcoin's creation. Satoshi's creation, besides a potential alternative currency, has lead to debate that, while existent, was never out in the open as before, with people questioning (or believing more strongly) whether or not governments should have a monopolistic control over the currency of a nation. Some believe this to be a public utility, giving governments the ability to do more public good by having the ability to print more money, at least in moderation, should a crisis arise or problems need to be solved. Others believe it leads to currency debasement and theft from the masses due printing money for the corrupt and powerful and indebting the masses, often viewing such constructs as glorified cartels that control their populations through financial and social engineering. At any rate, regardless of one's opinion on Bitcoin, it's very likely Satoshi made the right call staying anonymous, given how large, powerful governments traditionally react whenever a significant threat to the money printer shows up.
• Nikola Tesla is renowned as one of the most brilliant inventors of all time, and his innovations stunned everyone who came into contact with them. Yet, he was also known for being very dedicated to his work, spending nearly 18 hours holed up in his lab. While he did have a tightly knit circle of friends, which included Mark Twain, he was largely celibate and had zero intimate relationships in his life (although he did fall in love with one of his pet pigeons). Towards the end of his life, his lab ended up suffering foreclosure due to his mounting debt, and he ended up living his final years in various New York hotels. His work fell into general obscurity until the 1960s, where he got a critical renewal.
• After Bobby Fischer lost the title of World Champion in 1975 (well, forfeited—he demanded specific rules for the tournament that the World Chess Federation would not agree to, so he refused to play), he basically retired from chess and from the public eye for nearly 20 years, living a reclusive life until an anniversary rematch against old foe Boris Spassky (who he defeated to win the title of World Champion in the first place) in 1992.
  • That match would indirectly lead to Fischer's downward spiral. The 1992 Fischer-Spassky match was played in what was then known as Yugoslavia, which was under embargo from the UN and the U.S. during the bloody conflict in that region. After President Bush Sr. issued an executive order that the U.S. would comply with the UN's embargo of Yugoslavia, Fischer, an American citizen at the time, was told that playing the match in Belgrade would violate US and international law. Fischer appeared in a press conference where he spat on a copy of the president's executive order and played the match anyway. After the match, Fischer would spend the last years of his life fearing legal action in the U.S., going from country to country seeking asylum, attempting to renounce his citizenship, and publicly making anti-American statements before settling in Iceland.
• Chris Morris, who wrote things like Brass Eye and Four Lions, barely makes public appearances and almost never does interviews, so much so that for his official biography the writer had to talk to people who knew Morris rather than Morris himself. He did briefly pop up in public quite a bit due to the release of his film Four Lions but has since disappeared again.
• British comedian Daniel Kitson is impossible to get interviews with and has said that he never wants to do TV work again. There's also no DVDs or CDs of his stand-up because he feels that it loses the feel of live performance. Probably his biggest TV appearance was on Phoenix Nights as Spencer, which he hated so much that it drove him away completely from doing any TV work. He’s explained that’s just because he doesn't want mainstream recognition as it attracts Fan Dumb. And aside from that, he tours often, has an active public life, and is said to be "very charismatic" in person. He also has a Bandcamp. In the words of Rob Batchelor, "Kitson is the JD Salinger of comedy, if JD Salinger regularly released new work, wasn't a recluse, and was regularly seen in public."
• Al Yeganeh, the soupman that inspired the Soup Nazi. Oddly enough, Yeganeh operated his restaurant without much hassle for years after the episode aired, and even invited interviews as long as there was no mention of Seinfeld or "the N word", since he's Jewish. He did, though, shun the spotlight when he re-formatted his Soup Kitchen into the Original Soupman franchise and no-showed its grand re-opening. Since going corporate, Yeganeh has had little public presence (although his likeness still serves as the company logo), probably at the insistence of shareholders who prefer more PR-friendly personalities as active spokespersons, such as Reggie Jackson and Shaquille O'Neal, both of whom are also investors in the company. Reportedly, Yeganeh sold his share of the company but lives somewhere near the New York Location.
• Matt Drudge, creator of the famed Drudge Report. Though he had a show on Fox News and published a book in the early 2000s, he has been inaccessible since 2004 or so. He still maintains (and makes a lot of money from) his famous website, but barely grants interviews and practically nothing is known about his current personal life.
• Bettie Page, the famed pin-up model. After 1958 or so, she converted to Christianity and wanted to bury her modeling past as much as possible. Despite her resurgence in popularity in the 1980s, she barely granted interviews and did not allow current photos of herself to be published. Part of this attitude may have been due to her schizophrenia diagnosis in the late 1970s. She wasn't even aware of her newfound popularity until an interviewer in the early 1990s pointed it out.
• Even small-scale popularity can have this happen. Some artists may be constantly bombarded with messages discussing commissions, people wanting to be their friends, or dealing with web-drama amongst their existing friends so getting a hold of them is quite difficult.
• Dino Attack RPG:
  • Over time in the RPG, many of the players got to know each other on a surprisingly personal level, up to and including revealing their real names (or at least their first name) and a general idea of where they live (so far as nationality and hometown anyway, precise addresses were obviously not given). The one exception is PeabodySam, who, while fairly personal with other players, seems to make a point of stating as little about himself as possible. He has dropped hints, but how reliable any of them are is debatable. The most he has ever said is that he claims to be a 101-year-old man who lives somewhere in the United States.
  • Most players who left the RPG also tended to disappear from BZPower around the same time, and as a result, they are all difficult to track down and can be considered reclusive artists, especially due to the anonymous nature of BZPower usernames. There are exceptions, such as Chronicler of Ko-Koro and Canama, who are still active in the online LEGO community. However, by far the most infamous example of this in Dino Attack RPG would be Kotua in Space, who not only disappeared from BZPower but also Brickshelf, MOCpages, and many other websites all at the same time in late 2007 so he could focus on schoolwork.
• Subverted with Ashida Kim: Ninja master and author of a large number of ninja books that were part of the ninja-mania of the 1980s. For a ninja, he's not quite reclusive enough. He has given interviews, made public appearances, has a YouTube channel, attended martial arts conventions and seminars (usually smaller ones and not those hosted by nationally or internationally recognized mainstream organizations), and hosts a forum on his own website (although it's become evident that many past posts by him might have been by moderators that he appoints). The issue with him is that he is very elusive about his martial arts credentials leading many to assume that he's a fake, fraud, and charlatan. It can be argued that Ashida does avoid most public appearances in the mainstream martial arts scene where his credentials would be critically reviewed. He apparently restricts himself to those underground scenes populated by fellow "questionable figures" such as Frank Dux and Irving Soto. And, as has been rightfully pointed out here, a person who has actually done the kind of undercover ninja things that Ashida Kim claims to have done would logically avoid public appearances.
• Animation writer Merriwether Williams, who has written on cartoons like SpongeBob SquarePants, Adventure Time, and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, is very reclusive. There's only one known photo of her online, only one known interview with her, and for a while, she was the only "Pony" writer who never made public appearances in cons.
• Many Monster Jam drivers vanished off the face of the Earth after retirement. Notable examples are Gary Porter and Brian Barthel.
• The only thing anyone knows about the original streamer of Twitch Plays Pokémon is that he's Australian.
• Willard Scott. In addition to having no known social media, his centenarian birthday segments on Today were being shown less and less frequently in the months leading up to his 2015 retirement, and even then, at that point they were no longer being done live but filmed sporadically. Before then, the most noteworthy news about him was in the spring of 2014 when he remarried. Justified since he was already in his eighties and had to take time to slow down.
• Speaking of the Today show, longtime film critic Gene Shalit literally disappeared after he left the show sometime in 2011. His most recent appearance was in 2015 after Willard's retirement.
• Until 2016, the only known picture of former Marvel Studios chairman Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter was taken in 1985. Perlmutter was rumored to have attended the premiere of Iron Man in disguise. His only interview was one he did for the Wall Street Journal in the aftermath of his dismissal from Marvel, but he otherwise prides himself on never giving any other interviews.
• Fitness guru Richard Simmons is a rather disturbing instance of this. After decades of being an extrovert, he suddenly vanished from the public eye. According to this Cracked article, the general conception is that he's being held captive inside his own house and whoever is doing so to him is cutting him off from society. He did give a phone-in interview to the Today Show, saying that he actually wasn't being held captive and simply didn't want to be in the public eye... which people immediately took as being exactly what someone being held captive would say. The theory took a big hit when he reemerged into the public eye in 2017 to sue the National Enquirer for claiming he'd had a sex-change operation.^note He lost, due to not providing enough evidence that the story had negatively impacted his life.
• Ghost of True Capitalist Radio may have hundreds of hours of radio shows where he espouses his (often extreme) opinions, but next to nothing is known about the man himself. His real name, his face, even his age are all left a mystery, with trolls only going by breadcrumbs Ghost occasionally lets out to piece together things. Though considering his opinions, this may be down to protect himself.
• Amoridere, from what can be guessed, is pretty secretive (and shy), so most of what's known about her is what she's said in the descriptions of her works, what's shown in her photos, said on her social media, or if one asks her, which isn't much besides that she lives somewhere in southwestern Ohio, parts of her name, and the fact that she spends/spent much of her time at home (according to her earlier photos).
• Troll Fic writer BoxOfScraps, who wrote many fics consisting of an over-the-top depiction of some show and/or other piece of media being interrupted by Iron Man killing the characters for no reason. To this day, nobody has claimed responsibility for the fanfics, all of which were published in 2010, and nobody has been able to find out the true identity of this infamous troll fic writer, though it's believed BoxofScraps was run by the same person as the now-defunct @Real_Hulk Twitter account.
• Special effects artist Rob Bottin has become this since his retirement, aside from appearing in the documentary "Fantastic Flesh" and making a comic con appearance for his work on The Howling, he rarely makes public appearances or gives interviews, and has no social media.
• Jamie Hyneman, of MythBusters fame, was never truly comfortable with the public attention he received because of the show. Once MythBusters ended, he ended his partnership with Adam Savage and downsized M5 Industries to focus on prototyping and engineering projects that interest him personally. His public appearances are sporadic and small-scale and mainly aimed at getting people interested in science and engineering.
• The anonymous "concerned citizen" who is the host of the true-crime podcast Swindled. All we know is the Citizen's gender (male) and nationality (American). Then again, this might be for his protection, given that he has expressed controversial opinions that border on anti-consumerism. Also, if his identity were to be exposed, he would be targeted for lawsuits by many of the corporations and people he's covered, not to mention harassment by trolls.
• John J.B. Wilson, the founder of the Golden Raspberry Awards. Aside from personal details, he is quite the recluse and has no social media profiles. Though, like with Seltzer and Friedberg, it's likely he's protecting himself and his family rather than just avoiding people.
• Charles Sonnenburg aka SF Debris is another online personality who doesn't show his face, even after a decade of reviewing. That said, he is active on Twitter and does interact with others.
• Comedian and magician Jerry Sadowitz. Interviews with him are very rare, he doesn't make public appearances outside of performing and he is so protective of his intellectual property that it's near impossible to find online.
• Cosplayers Oextremelunatics (Jen) and Snarkymcsnarkpants (Babi) are very private with their personal lives. Neither has done an interview or shown themselves out of makeup^note although in June 2019, Babi posted a now lost live video of herself discussing the controversy surrounding one of her cosplays., and they don't have any social media presence outside of Instagram. The only thing we know for sure is that Babi more or less abandoned her account to share one with Jen, hence why the latter interacts with fans more often.
• Joe Ruby and Ken Spears were this in final years.
• Almost nothing is known about the creators of Most Offensive Video. Judging by a reference to Checkers in Beware of the Easter Nigga, Charlie Brown, they're likely from somewhere in the midwestern or southeastern US.
• To this day, it is unknown who played the role of "The Inquizitor", the mysteriously bearded and shadowed host of the game show Inquizition. Several names have been rumored, but only one (Bob Stewart) has successfully been Jossed. The lack of identity is reportedly due to the host's contract.
• Blogger and podcast host Gotta Laff or Laffy was at one point an on-camera actress and voice actress on various cartoons during the '80s and '90s, all that is known is at one point she did the voice of the character Bubbles Blastoff from The Jetsons, although several photos of her are online she prefers to remain anonymous and not use her real name, going at far as deleting all her credits from IMDB.
• When Wired tried to reach out to Mafia's original creator, Dimitry Davidoff, he refused to be contacted through conventional methods, only agreeing to meet for an interview within World of Warcraft.
• Chris from The Technical Difficulties is a notorious recluse in real life. While he gladly appears in the videos with Tom Scott, Gary, and Matt, he avoids giving away anything even remotely personal. All we know is anything he's consented to leave in the final cuts of videos, and even then, all we know is that he lives in the north of England, he knows quite a lot about birds, and that he's good with his hands. His bio on the official site is also redacted to emphasize this, and the site (and the Title In text in early Citation Needed episodes) also mentions he "doesn't do this social media nonsense".
• Save for one interview from 2004, almost nothing is known about Norman E. Gibat, the inventor of word search puzzles.
• Kizuna AI is a Trope Codifier for VTubing, but nothing is known about the people behind her; not the people who make her videos or, until April 2020, the voice actress who portrays her. The reason for a given end date for the latter point was that due to concern over a possible change in voice actor in 2019, Chinese fans on bilibili (basically the Chinese YouTube) connected the dots and deduced Ai's voice to be Nozomi "Non-chan" Kasuga, an aspiring voice actress who happens to share Ai's birthday. Kasuga refused to confirm or deny, much less speak of any controversy, until April 2020 when she publicly outed herself as the character.
  • Indeed, many if not most VTubers do not reveal their real-life identities - the anonymity afforded by a VTuber avatar is part of the appeal. The big agencies, like hololive and Nijisanji, make it an Enforced Trope so as to protect their talents from harassment, and at least one Twitch VTuber, Zentreya of VShojo, goes so far as to disguise her voice via a speech-to-text-to-speech program. The only ones who are comfortable with showing their real identities are those who are established people outside of the VTuber space, like Amanda Lee, who goes by "Multiverse Monarch" on Twitch.
• Nothing about the life of Patrica Bays Haroski, who invented Boss's Day, was known until 2005, when she died
• Despite his site having once been one of the biggest drivers of Memetic Mutation on the Internet, it's pretty much impossible to get in touch with YTMND founder Max Goldberg. Even during the site's heyday he refused to give away too much detail about himself and seemed to hate the community that formed around it. As late as 2019, long after the site faded from relevance, it took a Gizmodo reporter seven months worth of emails just to get him to agree to an interview over the phone.
• Pakistani born spiritual guru and writer Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi, founder of the controversial new age group Messiah Foundation International, was last seen in public in 2001 near his house in London. The MFI claims that he is still alive, and is only in hiding after the Pakistani government charged him with blasphemy, others believe that he died in 2003, with one MFI splinter group going as far as to build a tomb for him
• Christopher "moot" Poole, founder and former owner of 4chan, has become this ever since he sold the site in 2015. His Twitter account was last updated in 2015, and his Tumblr blog where he announced he was hired by Google is now defunct. He left Google in 2021 and whatever current projects he's doing are unknown. Considering the controversies that erupted on the site over the years, especially during the last few years he was running the site, this could be seen as him trying to protect himself and move on from the community he created and now no longer cares for.
  • Even before leaving *chan culture behind, moot was infamous for being hard to track down: for the first five years of the site's existence he tried to keep a low profile to avoid scrutiny, using the pseudonyms Robert Bopkins and Richard Goins in his business dealings. In IRC chats with users, he would even sometimes claim to be a woman or a gay porn star to throw people off, leading to a sitewide meme that moot was a lesbian catgirl from Mexico. It took an investigative report from the Wall Street Journal for his real name to be revealed, and even at the time a lot of people thought it was a pseudonym.
• Arthur MacArthur IV, the only child of Douglas MacArthur, has voluntarily left the public eye ever since he graduated from Columbia University in 1961. His last major public appearance was during his father's funeral in 1964. Since his father was and still is considered an American war hero, he was all over the press ever since he was four years old, with newspapers speculating on if the handsome young lad would grow up to join the army like his father did. But having grown up in a childhood full of war, he instead pursued music and majored in English, and decided to live out a quiet life in Manhattan under an assumed name. The last time he resurfaced was in 2004, during the construction of the famous 15 Central Park West condo complex: in order to build the complex, they had to demolish the historic Mayflower Hotel, where he had been living for decades under the name "David Jordan", and the developers had to pay him to move. Forbes managed to track him down but noted he declined to be interviewed: ever since then, journalists have respected his wish for privacy.

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