Chuck Tingle

Dr. Chuck Tingle is a pseudonymous author of gay niche erotica.^[1][2][3] He self-publishes his works through Amazon.com, primarily as ebooks, but also as paperbacks and audiobooks (narrated by Sam Rand).^[4][5][6][7] Tingle began his career by writing dinosaur erotica and expanded to stories based on unicorns, Bigfoot, and various anthropomorphized objects and even concepts.^[8][9] The bizarre nature of Tingle's writing has led to his developing a cult reputation.^{[10][11][12][13][14]}

Career

Little has been confirmed about Tingle's identity, beyond the fact that it is a pseudonym.^[9] He claims to have been born in Home of Truth, Utah, a small isolated southern Utah town established in 1933 as a religious commune.^[15] Tingle presents himself as a taekwondo grandmaster from Billings, Montana, who acquired a PhD in holistic massage at DeVry University (which does not offer such a degree^[16]). In 2016, a person presented as Tingle's son Jon – and identified as such by a statement from Tingle's Twitter account – stated in a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session that Tingle "is an autistic savant, but also suffers from schizophrenia."^[9] Jon stated that he edits his father's work for publication, and provides day-to-day care for him.^[9] Tingle claims to use Photoshop software to create his own book covers,^[17] which invariably feature a photo of a muscular, bare-chested man juxtaposed with an image of the dinosaur or other unlikely entity whose sexual escapades are featured in the story. Vox author Aja Romano has speculated that Tingle's work may be a deliberate satire on poorly written self-published erotic fiction.^[18][19]

In April 2016, "Space Raptor Butt Invasion" was shortlisted for a Hugo Award for Best Short Story in the prestigious Hugo Awards for science fiction.^[20] This stemmed from a campaign by the alt-right "Rabid Puppies" group, a faction of the Sad Puppies movement that laments the perceived politicization of science fiction.^{[16][21][22][23]} However, Tingle disavowed the campaign, saying via his Twitter account that it was the work of "devils",^[16] and that if his book were to win, video game designer and anti-harassment activist Zoë Quinn would accept the award on his behalf.^[24][25] His story did not win. Tingle subsequently published "Pounded in the Butt by My Hugo Award Loss.^[26]

During Donald Trump's presidential campaign, Tingle created the web site TrumpDebateFacts.com, which purported to fact-check various imaginary Trump claims, mostly attempts to hide Trump's supposed non-human origins (such as "I am not a poorly disguised mass of crabs wearing the skin of bloated human"). Tingle also released the book Slammed In The Butt By Domald Tromp's [sic] Attempt To Avoid Accusations Of Plagiarism By Removing All Facts Or Concrete Plans From His Republican National Convention Speech.^[27]

On February 13, 2018, a podcast titled Pounded in the Butt By My Own Podcast, based on Tingle's works, debuted in association with the producers of Welcome to Night Vale, a horror-fantasy podcast.^[28] In it, various alumni of the Night Vale podcast (including Cecil Baldwin and Mara Wilson) read from Tingle's novellas to the reaction of a live audience.

Bibliography

Other projects

In August 2016, Zoë Quinn announced that she was developing an erotic adventure game with the working title Project Tingler, in collaboration with Tingle.^[29]

In May 2017 a group announced DeepTingle, a computerized text prediction and classification system based on a database of Tingle's fiction, for the purpose of "foreground[ing] and confront[ing] the norms embedded in data-driven creativity and productivity assistance tools".^[30]

In March 2018, Night Vale Presents Podcasts began the "Pounded in the Butt by My Own Podcast" podcast, with celebrity readings of Tingle's works.^[31]

References

External links

• Official website
• Chuck Tingle at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database