The World’s Fastest Nudist is as fictional as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, it was revealed this week.
The bare-bunned runner, recently interviewed by this newspaper and featured in a clip on CNN, is a 30-year-old actor named Kyle Overstreet, who was actually on the job while exposing himself — working for a viral video campaign for Zappos, an online retailer, The New York Times reported this week.
Overstreet told this paper he was Donnie Monetro, a cocky kid with wide-eyed optimism, a passion for running, and a hatred of clothes. He claimed he won the World Nude 10k, a fictional race he insisted, after repeated follow-up questions, was “really underground, like “Fight Club,”” only naked.
While the interview with Overstreet was tongue in cheek, he never broke character — all the while spinning a fantastic tale of abandon, hope, and fitness. At one point he described how his running was a tribute to his recently deceased father — seeming to be on the verge of tears. At press time, Overstreet didn’t return a request for comment through his World’s Fastest Nudist e-mail account.
The Gray Lady reported that the campaign, by Agent 16 in New York, “underscores that Zappos sells clothes, as demonstrated in the latest video, uploaded to YouTube on Oct. 21, which mentioned the company for the first time.” Overstreet is seen “sprinting when a van screeches to a halt and several passengers emerge wearing Zappos T-shirts and carrying Zappos boxes. Moments later, the passengers re-board and the van pulls away, revealing that Overstreet is wearing a pair of pants and a dress shirt.”
It is unclear whether the void left by the Times’ important revelation will one day give rise to the genuine thing. One thing is certain, if another nude runner emerges, he or she had better produce three forms of identification if they want to be interviewed by this paper.
–Gary Buiso
