Wylie H. Dallas is not real. Let’s get that out of the way. He is a persona, a name attached to a commenter and a Facebook page. He—and I say “he” only because the picture he has chosen to represent himself on social media is of a bowing man in a suit—has spent years keeping reporters, pundits, and politicians honest, dissecting their work with uncommon acumen. Armed with only his insight, Wylie H. has shown that his informed opinions can shape a public debate, from shaming the Dallas Morning News for its sloppy inland port reporting to holding school board trustees accountable for vitriol spewed on Facebook. He has become, as his Twitter profile suggests, the city’s comment-section guardian, protecting us from the ignorance and arrogance of our ruling class.

Wylie H. has become oddly influential. He is now someone to whom powerful people pay attention. I attended a meeting not long ago in which several civic bigwigs leaned in to discuss, in the most serious of tones, the City Council endorsements that Wylie H. had posted on Facebook. “Anyone know if we can get him to change his mind on his District 8 endorsement?” one person asked. “It would really help.” Everyone mumbled in agreement and took notes.

To recap: a well-known backroom political operator was asking his strategy round table if it could wield its influence to get a fake person to change his endorsement on social media.

All of which is absurd and wonderful, because it speaks to two improvements in Dallas’ political discourse. First, intelligence and insight—two of Wylie H.’s only three weapons—are beginning to matter more than authority (personal, political, or media). And, second, Wylie H.’s ascendancy proves that, oh so rarely, anonymity can be used as a force for good.

Which is why the urge to unmask him is so wrongheaded. Think about it. In so much current political discourse, ideas are not debated. One side throws out an idea: “Let’s build a multilane, high-speed toll road through a park!” Opponents present their counter-argument: “Wow, that’s so dumb!” Then each side spends all its time attacking the virtue of the personalities involved instead of looking at the merits of their arguments. Soon, no one is listening to the particulars of either argument.

But with Wylie H. you must listen, because all you have is what he’s saying. When he first began decrying the financial underpinnings of the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System’s investments, the arguments were so cogent that media took heed. When he carefully detailed the wishy-washy stances Mayor Mike Rawlings had taken on the development of the Trinity toll road, City Council members took notice and praised the work of Wylie H.

That happened on FrontBurner, the news blog for D Magazine, where Wylie H. is a sometime contributor. No one (else) at the magazine knows who he is. As the editor of this magazine wrote on the blog in announcing that the Wylie H. persona had been given the opportunity to write posts on city issues, he felt comfortable allowing anonymity, because only his insights mattered: “Over the past couple of years of doing his work in the comments sections of various Dallas blogs (and on his own Facebook page), Wylie has shown himself to be a reasonable, thoughtful fellow whose agenda is promoting truth, justice, walkable urbanism, and the American way.”

So, if you believe, as I do, that Wylie H.’s anonymity is a force for good in the city, how then can you profile him?

Very, very carefully.

Which is how I find myself at a place in a city we’ll call Dallas, sharing a beverage with a ghost. Ghosts don’t exist, remember. They are seen by a few people who can’t prove they ever saw one, people who only sound crazier the more they try to describe what they see. That said, let me try to describe to you what I see.

The ghost of Wylie H. is tall. Though that might be a misperception that results from the hovering. Hard to say. But it acts tall, if that makes sense. Confident, quiet, very smart, in control. A worldly ghost, as it were. A ghost out of a le Carré novel, were that novel set in the Design District.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to quote a ghost, especially one that has an unusually good understanding of the difference between off-the-record and on-the-record conversations. It is difficult. But here’s what I can tell you:

Wylie H. just happened. The persona wasn’t part of a grand scheme. In 2007, Wylie H. read something in the Morning News either about the Trinity toll road referendum or about the convention center hotel. He can’t recall exactly. But the story contained erroneous information. So Wylie H. decided to offer a correction, a process that would be easier if he were anonymous. He conjured a name by choosing a random Texas town and adding a middle initial—just sounded cooler that way. For an image to represent the persona, he turned to a stock photo service. It cost him $15.

He became a regular in comments sections all over, but his notoriety really shot up in 2013, when Wylie H. himself became a front-page Metro story. He got into a running argument with former NBC Channel 5 anchor Mike Snyder, who was working as a consultant for the Police and Fire Pension System. After Wylie H. explained how the pension’s real estate investments were putting Dallas taxpayers at risk, Snyder fired back. But he didn’t use his real name; he commented using bogus accounts he’d created on Facebook. The Morning News outed Snyder, who was forced to quit his work for the pension and dissolve his consultancy.

“Since then, it has become bigger than what I imagined,” says the ghost of Wylie H. “What I have tried to do with the Facebook page is create a virtual replica of a room salon, where people can come, hang out, and debate municipal policy and planning in a stimulating atmosphere.”

As with all ghosts, Wylie H. seems to be everywhere at once. If one were to use some sort of forensic social media tracking system to out him—which, at this point, only a small-minded spoilsport would do—that system would only confirm his omnipresence. He posts pictures minutes apart from locations across town from each other. If you time-stamped the entire oeuvre of Wylie H., it would seem he does not sleep.

He takes great care not to be found out. He used to call in to a radio show I once co-hosted with Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze to discuss city issues. He disguised his voice with an app on his phone. At the time, Schutze was obsessed with finding out the identity of Wylie H. At one point, the columnist thought he’d nailed him.

Schutze confronted a person at an East Dallas garden party. “I know you’re Wylie H. Dallas,” he told this very real person.

“You’re crazy!” the real person replied.

A few days later, the real person called Schutze and asked if he was going to try to pin Wylie H. on him. Schutze said no. “I’d had time to think about it,” he tells me. “I decided to wait on Wylie H. until after I complete my real life’s work, proving to small children that there is no Santa Claus.”

Which is exactly the point. The anonymity does us no harm, and it does us great good. What happens when you can prove the benevolent, otherworldly being is real? Have you seen E.T.? Have you seen Harry and the Hendersons? Have you seen Iron Giant, for heaven’s sake? The hero is maligned, attacked, and must disappear forever.

The ghost with whom I’m talking hopes that never happens. There’s too much ahead of us that we need to fix as a city.

“A lot of people confide in me [through email or Facebook],” he says. “Politicians, civil servants, media, business people, citizens. They feel like they can, because I’m not real. But they know I care about the city. And they do, too. It’s odd, I know. But this has become something that gives me hope that we can shine a light on what’s wrong, get rid of ideas that are no longer valid, figure out where the responsibility for change lies, and determine what we need to do to make Dallas a better place to live.”

It is a wonderful sentiment. And if I were to tell you that no one really said that to me, because ghosts can’t talk, would it matter?

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