There are worse things to get horribly, almost unthinkably wrong than the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. (The outcome of a presidential election, for one.) But there has definitely never been a worse time than 2016 to make bold predictions. That year, I published an article titled, “Who Will Win the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature? Not Bob Dylan, that’s for sure.” The previous year, I published a version of that article with the subhead “If Bob Dylan wins, I will eat my copy of Blood on the Tracks.” Bob Dylan, of course, won the prize last year, and I got dunked on for days.

I believed that Dylan wouldn’t win—ever—because most of the speculation surrounding the Nobel Prize in Literature is fun, harmless nonsense. The Nobel Prize in Literature is often awarded to a writer that most people, even most well-read people, have never heard of, and yet there is enormous interest in the prize. This provides incentive for journalists to make claims like “Will [famous person, possibly Bob Dylan] Win the Nobel Prize?” or “Bob Dylan Should Win The Nobel Prize.”

Similarly, because the Nobel Committee for Literature is so quiet and opaque (the Trump administration should study its ability to keep the lid on leaks), the conversation surrounding the Nobel Prize is guided by the betting service Ladbrokes. This means that any weirdo who thinks that betting on the Nobel Prize is a good use of their hard-earned money can change the odds.

Given these two realities—and the more important reality, which is that Bob Dylan is a musician and not a writer, poet, playwright, or journalist—I assumed that the idea of Bob Dylan, Nobel Laureate, was a byproduct of the clickbait era.

I did have one hint. Two people who had some knowledge of the inner workings of the committee told me that the rumor in Stockholm was that an American was definitely going to win. Having decided that Dylan wasn’t actually a contender and that Philip Roth wouldn’t win, I published another piece asking the question, “Is it Don DeLillo’s Year to Win the Nobel Prize?” Betteridge’s law strikes again.

