Media meme #2: about that "indie rock" petition for Prime 6; the author can't be found and the whole thing may be fake

Neighbors' concerns about Prime 6, the "sports bar," club, or simply nightlife spot with an entrance on Flatbush Avenue and a backyard extending into a residential block, has turned into a huge donnybrook about 1) bars capitalizing on the arena and 2) places attracting a "hip-hop" crowd.

The first seems at least partly true. Evidence for the second relies mostly on an online petition urging that the bar switch to "indie" rock, a petition so precious that it generated numerous parody signatures, and a petition in response urging "Jennifer McMillen" to move to the Hamptons. And lots of pile-on coverage.

Except no one, save the Wall Street Journal, tried to find McMillen, who's not listed in the phone book or in any database.(Add Metro to the list.) And the Journal couldn't find her, and suggests the kerfuffle is based on a falsehood:

It was provocative stuff, especially for a famously liberal and oft-mocked Brooklyn enclave. Except it might not be true.

At a recent meeting, most locals who turned out in force to air gripes about the establishment—tentatively called Prime 6 and tentatively set to open in May—didn't know a Ms. McMillen. Efforts by The Wall Street Journal to find a person with that name in New York City were unsuccessful.