Laura, don’t let Gutbloom fool you, he really is the Mayor of Medium, it’s just that, having got himself elected, he’s discovered he doesn’t like having to actually do the job of (for example) policing people’s lawns to make sure they’re mowed in compliance with the Medium code, and presiding over Medium’s town council meetings, and the like. It’s no coincidence he used a fishing analogy to explain trolling to you, because Gutbloom would rather be fishing and drinking a can of Milwaukee’s Best than anything else in the world. It’s virtually a given that that’s where he is at any given moment, including this one.

He’s also the Trubune of Medium, but no one really knows what that is and many suspect that that title really is made up. And of course he’s a Third Pharaoh of something or other, but I feel like anyone with access to decent genealogy records could trace their own lineage back to some Pharaoh from antiquity, so I wouldn’t be too impressed by that.

However, he is also professor emeritus of Medium University, the one title he doesn’t have listed on his profile, and methinks it could be the real job he’s afraid of being fired from if his real identity were discovered here on Medium. He’s a tenured professor, so I think his job is safe, regardless, but academic freedom certainly ain’t what it used to be.

Many believe that Gutbloom may actually be the founder of Medium, and that he merely hired a fellow named Ev Williams to run Medium’s day-to-day operations for him, but there’s just too little evidence in either direction to know for sure.

The one thing we do know: Gutbloom is an elusive, chameleonlike figure with an almost mystical way of shape-shifting and morphing into a new character each time the authorities think they’ve got him in their grasp. So far, they’ve never caught him. They once had him cornered in Tora Bora, and he slipped away through a secret mountain tunnel, and so he lives to enforce Medium deed restrictions another day.