The Origin of “BriWi”

In this week’s New York magazine, John Swansbourg takes an entertaining look at the deft comic stylings of NBC News Anchor Brian Williams and how he has developed a legitimate side career in comedy. As one who was an early chronicler of same (see: SNL maiden voyage, Colbert WristStrong stunt, Jon Stewart spar–fests, earnestly following up on a 2005 quip about Bea Arthur). I appreciated seeing how Swansbourg traced his gestation from anchor-who-hosts-lots-of-dinners to legit OMG-is-this-a-residuals-check? funnyman. And it’s nice to see BriWi no longer apologizing for cracking a few jokes outside the 6:30 – 7pm timeslot. Good times all around.

But I admit that I read that article with an agenda. I held my breath, eagerly scanning the pages (ha ha, that’s a joke, obviously I read it online) – would my one contribution to the pop culture canon merit a mention? Would the name by which Brian Williams has come to be known by so many of his fans, especially on Twitter thanks to efficiency of character count, make the cut? I speak, of course, of BriWi.

But what was this? It was there, all right, but – sacre bleu! – it was all wrong: “I was in the studio during the taping of a recent “Slow Jammin’” segment, the one that preceded the tie mishap. A recurring joke in these bits involves Fallon’s bestowing various slow- jammin’- appropriate nicknames on Williams—Brizzle, Brilliams, and, my favorite, BriWi.”

Emphasis added.

Well. I’m glad he likes it – and I’m glad Jimmy used it! – but it’s been a living, breathing, joyful part of the Brian Williams canon since Late Night with Jimmy Fallon was just a twinkle in Lorne Michaels’ eye. And, for the first time, the story can be told.

BriWi is my stupid, goofy nickname for Brian Williams, borne not of any desire to de-gravitas the Voice of God but from the blogger’s quick-post imperative. Long before it appeared in print, I was using it as a shorthand for saving photos at Eat The Press, the media page at HuffPo which i launched in June 2006 as – ha – the first stand alone vertical on the site. In 2006/2007, the Big Three anchors were big news (Katie Couric moves to CBS! Succession drama at ABC! Hold-your-breath weekly ratings!). It was before any of the networks had implemented embeddable video code into their online infrastructure, and it was before the networks really cared much about online anything. The big news in that area was that BriWi had started a blog (Katie followed suit; Charlie never much cared for that side of things). So anyway, a lot of my coverage involved network news.

The nickname itself first appeared in print on June 8, 2007. Jason Linkins, who took over Eat the Press from me when I left HuffPo and still rocks it like a hurricane to this day, was then a clutch contributor, and I was reviewing a post he had written about the coverage of Paris Hilton (brings you back, doesn’t it?). After a brief back and forth, which I have included for posterity below with Jason’s permission, I suggested this headline: “BriWi and KaCo on PaHi: An Exegesis.” (This was also in the days before SEO, where wanton, goofy headlines were not punished by an uncaring bot-filled Internet). Whatever you might think of that headline now, nonetheless we went with it, and it lives online forever more. Good times.

From there it was just a hop, skip and my own maniacal use away from nickname infamy. The blog world was smaller back then, and all you needed to get on the radar of TV news people was a pickup from TVNewser, and my old pal Brian Stelter (now a killer at the NYT). Stelter picked it up, I kept using it, people started adopting. Gawker probably used it, also Jeff Bercovici at Radar/WWD/Portfolio/it’s hard to keep track. The world kept turning and the news kept covering it and in between BriWi would say hi to Jon Stewart or Letterman or crack wise at the Time Person of the Year panels (do they still do those? They were fun!), and I would use my goofy nickname and drive it home. (I did try for expansion, but alas, “ToBro” for Tom Brokaw never quite caught on.)

Next Page: “BriWi” blows up, and the transcript that started it all.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.