After my story about Lena appeared , kiddofspeed was amended to admit to some “poetry”. But for years afterwards, words waged over whether it mattered if the motorcycle story was true, since the photos were real and the website drew global attention to Chernobyl. A thread discussing it on an urban explorer forum got nearly 200,000 views. It was then that I realized that for many people, even if they knew that kiddofspeed was a hoax, it was “true enough”.

And so, long after the debunking and the debates have died down, and their discussion board threads archived, the Chernobyl biker chick endures. People still mention her to me and are surprised to hear that it was a hoax, even seven years later after the fraud was exposed. Google “Chernobyl” and kiddofspeed is right there, on the first page, though I would not recommend using it as a scientific guide but rather as a symbol of what can pass for truth on the web.

Is it compelling? Certainly. Did I read it with bated breath in 2004? Absolutely. But it's a fiction. Keep in mind - this is a story about Chernobyl written by a person who has only visited Chernobyl once - after he wrote it. 5 Easy Pieces was pretty inspirational, too - and also a lie. Fiction should be judged by the standards of fiction, and non-fiction should be judged by the standards of non-fiction… and it's not like there isn't compelling non-fiction about Chernobyl.

Here's Boston.com's Big Picture 25th anniversary retrospective.

I'm all about narrative devices. However, "lying" is pretty far down the list for me. And perhaps it's because I grew up in Los Alamos, NM, where every hippie on the planet goes to sneak under one fence and shoot a documentary going "whoa! We're, like, radioactive!" when in fact they're getting in the way of my hiking… but if you're going to write about something as solemnly important as Chernobyl, tell the fucking truth.