John Hodgman is best known - if he is known at all - as the round and bespectacled (and funny) guy who plays the hapless "PC" on those Apple ads. He is not known as an expert on matters historical, matters literary and matters having to do with hobos, squirrels, lobsters, eels and the worst men's haircuts in history.
But he is. (That is a lie.) Hodgman, 35, caught Apple's eye after he appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote his new book of fake trivia, The Areas of My Expertise, during which he spoke - his face a study of serious purpose - of the hobos of the Great Depression and their "boxcar-hopping, no-pants-changing ways, and their brief attempt to take over the United States government."
In addition to being a fake historian, Hodgman is a contributor to public radio's This American Life and now the resident expert on The Daily Show, on which he explains current events with a completely made-up analysis. (Alan Greenspan's retirement as Federal Reserve Board chairman, for instance, means wild dogs will roam the streets, stealing babies.)
Hodgman is a new breed of literary celebrity - the kind with a fervent and growing following (more than 100 people showed up for a performance in Baltimore on Monday night), a twisted (some might say deranged) view of the world and unconventional ideas about what constitutes literature and, indeed, truth.
His book reached No. 15 on The New York Times best-seller list, and two more compendiums of fake trivia are in the works. He also has plans to make more Mac vs. PC ads. Fifteen have aired, and Apple considered them so successful, it ordered more.
It is a strange and unexpected turn for a man who had long hair and dressed like Doctor Who in high school, had a short story published in the Paris Review and spent a night in a London jail (drunken zoo invasion, he says), and who has an unusual - if not unhealthy - obsession with the mythology of the American hobo.
But in the Apple ads, he is merely a pleasant dork. "He has this wonderful, unscripted, sort of English professor quality about him that makes him very attractive," said Lucian James, chief executive officer of Agenda Inc., a San Francisco-based brand consulting firm.
Over coffee at Donna's in Mount Vernon, Hodgman credits the campaign's success to the simple Apple-esque aesthetic of the ads, the clever writing and the chemistry between himself and the actor who plays the Mac, Justin Long. But Hodgman, who graduated from Yale with a degree in literature, never set out to be an actor or a celebrity.
