Last night Ivy-Style.com was informed of strange similarities between “Richard,” the author of the WASP 101 blog (above) and Bryan R. Holloway (below), who is serving his fifth term as a Republican state representative of the 91st district in North Carolina.

Thirty-five-year-old Holloway is the son of a chicken farmer and teacher’s assistant and is a resident of King, North Carolina. He is a graduate of Appalachian State University, spent four years as a public school teacher and serves on education committees. He can be seen giving a speech in the clip below:

The similarities were discovered as a result of Google-enabled amateur sleuthing and a more-than-generous dash of Internet obsession.

Last night Ivy Style received an email from a source, who has requested anonymity, saying he had spent the past year trying to uncover the identity of the WASP 101 blogger. “I’ve been following every clue the weasel has posted for a year,” he wrote. “Sad? Yes. But what can I say, he bugs me.”

In an email exchange, he went on to explain:

Let me walk you through this obsession. I’m a traditional New Englander and stumbled upon his website after setting up a Google Reader account. At first I thought that Wasp 101 was satire — sadly it’s not. The more I read, the more I was convinced that I needed to take him down. So I began to read all of his past entries (no easy task) and kept a journal of all his outlandish claims. More telling than the blog posts were the comments he posted defending himself to the anonymous trolls. The anonymous posters always managed to glean a kernel of truth out of Richard. For instance, he talks about visiting outlets in North Carolina (specifically Brooks Brothers). When pushed about his residence he claims that he lives within a few hours of the outlets. I drew a two-hour radius and worked out from the outlet location. I googled and contacted countless PR firms within the circle, but always a dead end. Those are but a few things I looked at.

The source continued:

His big mistake was [earlier this week] posting his retrospective timeline. An anonymous poster mentioned something about his wife’s breasts, and that led to a post about him attending a wedding for a client that is a state senator. We’ve all suspected that he was from North Carolina, so I looked at current members and, more importantly, their spouses’ Facebook pages. That’s when I decided to look back at the last six years of state senators from North Carolina and see if any of them had been married in 2008. Politicos may set their accounts to private, but their spouses rarely do. State Senator Andrew Brock was there in 2008, and was married that year to Andrea. After scrolling through her friends I nearly fell out of my chair: the dog, that chin, that hairline, the wife — I knew them all so well.

“Richard” has posted many photos of his dog, which he has referred to by name as “Governor” in the comments section at WASP 101:

It appears to be the same breed of dog in this photo from Holloway’s Facebook page, which a friend in the comments section also refers to as “Governor:”

Below, the tan suit Holloway wears in the photo with Newt Gingrich is markedly similar to one “Richard” has blogged about:

One of WASP 101’s contributors, known as “Kipp,” also helped our source speculate that “Richard” resides in North Carolina:

… “Kipp” helped to confirm the North Carolina angle. In one of her posts around New Years’ she has a newspaper partially exposed on a table describing a fire. A simple Google search came up with a bar in Raleigh.

When pressed for a further explanation, the source explained:

Kipp left a corner of the paper’s masthead exposed. I googled NC newspapers and chose the one with similar masthead. Checked the headlines from the post time period and it matched.

This morning I telephoned Representative Holloway’s office and was informed by a female receptionist that he was in a meeting. I asked to leave a message, and halfway through spelling my last name, was interrupted with, “I know who you are.”

Update, 3:09 PM: The receptionist for Representative Holloway, according to her LinkedIn page, is Isabel Villa-Garcia, who bears a resemblance to the WASP 101 contributor “Kipp,” and which would explain why the young female receptionist of a North Carolina state representative would say “I know who you are” when telephoned by a New York-based menswear writer.

Below left is a picture of “Kipp” from WASP 101, while at right is Villa-Garcia from her LinkedIn page (more photos of “Kipp” are available through a Google Image search):

I then sent a follow-up email informing Representative Holloway that I was preparing a post for Ivy-Style.com that would examine similarities between himself and the author of WASP 101. The message was sent at 9:30 AM and Holloway was given a deadline of 2 PM to respond by telephone or email.

As of 2 PM Eastern Standard Time, Holloway had not responded to the telephone message or email.

A few minutes after the call to Holloway’s office, the WASP 101 website was taken down [Update: As of 2:25, the blog had been restored; as of 2:35 the site was again made invite only; 2:49 and site back up again; 2:56 down again; point made and no further updates needed.] Later the tumblr account called “The Preppy Halls Of WASP 101” was also closed. Below is a screenshot of the tumblr page from earlier this morning:

The WASP 101 Facebook page is currently still up, however, as is a MySpace page. [Update: Within several minutes of this posting, the Facebook page no longer appeared to be operational.]

Update 5:07 PM: Apparently members of the North Carolina media are on this story, and Representative Holloway has denied operating the WASP 101 blog. Meanwhile the website, which previously had been taken down with a message saying it was invite only, now turns up the message “Blog has been removed.”

Update 7:44 PM: Villa-Garcia removes above photo from her LinkedIn page.

And while the WASP 101 blog is no longer accessible, the photos “Richard” uploaded to it can still be found through a Google Image search:

Politicians are always getting caught with their pants down. Bryan R. Holloway — if he is the author of WASP 101 — may be the first caught with simply his pants. — CHRISTIAN CHENSVOLD