Jason Brydon, aka “The Jasonator”, is the main character in John Dobson’s hilarious debut novel, Year of the Gherkin. However, Brydon is no ordinary character – he has infiltrated our social networks to bring you his witty banter directly.
“The Jasonator” is, for all intents and purposes, very real. You can even interact with him via his Facebook page and Twitter account and even, in some instances, via sms. Keep your eyes glued to these pages for exciting developments, including further extracts from the novel.
This you have to see…
Jason Brydon is to all intents and purposes very real. He lives in Cape Town, works for a paint shop and hates his boss. He even has his own Facebook page and a Twitter account. But here’s the thing – Jason Brydon is a character in a book, not a flesh and blood person.
When we first read Year of the Gherkin, we knew this was something special. Jason was so real to us (ginger hair, a bit overweight) that we knew he really needed to exist, even if it was only online. Plus the whole book was so rooted in social media that we wanted its readers to experience that too. So now Jason does exist and we’re really excited about finally meeting him. If you’re reading the book and want to know why he chose to eat that curry, you can simply drop him a tweet and ask him. Or if you’re chuckling about his antics last night out at Caprice, you can visit his Facebook page and see all the photos.
Daniel Nash had the unique opportunity to meet The Jasonator in person:
So I’d seen a fair amount of noise about a new SA book, something like a grown up Spud, about a dude who is basically ‘that guy’. The guy that all the bad stuff happens to…if you rolled all your bad stories into one dude. Anyway, I was offered a book and accepted with the promise of a hot intern dropping it off with me, alas, they tricked me, and I was surprised, during lunch, by a ginger who wanted me to sign his hairy chest.
Far from a hot intern, the dude (Jason) actually turned out to be the guy from the book. We did some posed shots in Clarkes, someone thought I was an Asian football player, Jason unbuttoned his short and exposed his nipple to me. His vibe is awesome and from what I can tell, from the bits of the book I’ve already read, they’ve nailed the character. His Twitter handle made sense as well, because for the last few days I’ve had tweets from this dude I didn’t know, asking if he could join our table, or come along to whatever it was I was doing. I legitimately thought is was some random dude. So well done for catching me out bastards.
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Jason Brydon is causing something of a stir in the Twitterverse:
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Read two excerpts from Year of the Gherkin:
MONDAY 15 MARCH
Look, work’s not going that well.
Jase Brydon
From: Dave Peters
Date:15 March 2010 6.16AM
To: Jase Brydon
Cc: Mike Schilts ; hr@schiltsgroup.co.za
Subject: YOUR FUTURE
Jason
Maybe you can have a look at the below list and let me know why or how you think you have a future at 2Dye4 or anywhere within the group.
Because of this country’s bizarre employment laws which make you harder to unseat than a pope, I am not allowed to tell you to hand in your pristine order book right now. I am also not allowed to check your mail even though it is a company PC and a company server and a company mail address.
MONDAY 28 DECEMBER
Probably my worst Christmas. I got this moleskin 2010 diary from my mate Dawesy. In it he has written: Jase, if you keep this diary I will run naked up Long Street in lunch hour. Happy Xmas. Dawesy.
Stuff him, I will.
Badger, my mate from school, is out from London for the normal 10 days of craziness. You know, when they say on Facebook how awesome it will be when they are out over Christmas and they tweet how they are looking forward to Christmas, endless braais, bottomless Windhoeks and Niknaks, boardshorts and chicks (whatever they are, whoever they are) and when everyone can hook up. The problem is that your fb friends don’t all know or like each other. You can have 229 friends, but that does not mean anyone wants to see you.
Book details
Photos courtesy Jason Brydon on Facebook and Bangers and Nash
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