Uncouth Reflections

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

If you remember Tawnee Stone you’re either a male born before 1978 or just a congenital pervert — though of course the two categories aren’t mutually exclusive.

Tawnee, whose official title seems to be “Internet Sensation,” was one of the first nude models to have a website devoted entirely to her. That website still exists, proving that it’s possible to remain 19 forever.

The name “Tawnee Stone” is actually a registered trademark of the Lightspeed Media Corporation.

That reminds me: This guy I know once asked me where I went to school. When I told him I’d attended Lightspeed University, he took a second to process the comment, then nearly spit out the beer he was drinking. True story.

Being a trademarked product must be weird for the real person inhabiting Tawnee. Or do you suppose she gets a kick out of it? Either way, she must have found it odd when, in 2010, Lightspeed’s founder announced that Tawnee had passed away in a car accident. It was a joke: he’d merely killed off the fictional character named Tawnee Stone. But the echo of the announcement rang through the darker corners of the internet with the persistence of a particularly dank image macro of Harambe.

As a model Tawnee was somewhat dull. And yet the compact-but-curvaceous frame, the big brown eyes, and the dependably reproducible smile all somehow amounted to something unique, even memorable. I saw one internet commenter compare her to a cardboard cutout. There’s something to that characterization. She had the indelible quality of a — err — trademarked product.

Nudity below. Have a great weekend.

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