Why is he not reading the Herald? Who are those rugby players? And what are the benefits to subscribers? Toby Morris investigates.

It’s been the talk of watercoolers, break rooms, school gates and group chats all around the country. Anywhere New Zealanders gather, there’s only been one question on everyone’s lips all week, and here it is: what on earth is going on in the header image of the Subscriber Benefits Newsletter emailed to New Zealand Herald subscribers on September 14, 2022? It’s a question that leads to more questions: What is he reading? Why is there a black and white rugby game behind him? Who is this strange fellow? What are the benefits to subscribers?

Well, rest easy, we’re here to unravel this great mystery once and for all.

What is he reading?

Some say the key to the puzzle, and perhaps the most baffling aspect of the mystery, is figuring out what newspaper the man is reading, because at a glance, it doesn’t appear to be the New Zealand Herald. It seems to be broadsheet sized, with seven columns, right aligned. The New Zealand Herald, during the week at least, is the smaller tabloid size, with only the Weekend Herald still being published in the original broadsheet.

The rag edged rather than justified text in the image looks like listings, perhaps classifieds, TV schedules or stock prices, but doesn’t match the style of any of those elements in Herald editions viewed by this reporter.

Verdict: He’s probably not reading the Herald.

Who is this strange fellow?

A lot of people in online forums have been trying to figure out who this strange man is, and what he is thinking. He’s cool, he’s charismatic, he has a great watch, but who is he? His look is slightly pensive and thoughtful – you wouldn’t really say he is enjoying what he is reading, but many online sleuths have made the case he appears to be digesting and considering important information, which could be described as a benefit.

Personally, I think he resembles a cross between Aya Cash from the TV series You’re The Worst and British TV presenter and podcast host Alice Levine. Those are two very attractive people to be compared to, but on closer inspection, it’s mostly just the hair, which Spinoff wig expert Sam Brooks thinks might not even be real.

One theory that’s been popular on Reddit is that the man is too cool to be true, and perhaps he’s an AI creation, so we attempted to recreate the image using image creation software Dall-E 2.

While Dall-E conjured up some pretty smooth operators, we still didn’t find a match.

Interestingly, this batch decided our man needed to use his finger to read in style of a seven year old. But like beginner readers who don’t use their fingers, we were getting off track.

Next road to explore was stock imagery. Getty is usually our first port of call, and although they have a rich supply of very aspirational newspaper readers who could’ve worked well, they’re still not right.

And then a break through! Private investigator Toby Manhire uncovered a treasure trove of at least 45 images of our fella in various locations and poses, reading this unnamed newspaper and looking wistful.

Sometimes he rolls his sleeves up, or checks his watch, or looks away from the paper thoughtfully, digesting the weight of the world. Sometimes he has a jaunty bowler hat.

But do we get any clues about who he is? No. Most of the image labels call him “red-haired hipster man”, but occasionally he gets “popular hipster” and sometimes the mysterious “reddish man”. So, knowing he’s an international stock photo model, we can most likely rule out him being a Herald reader or staff member.

Verdict: He’s a symbol, an avatar for some kind of aspirational character. He’s either an idealised Herald reader, or, given he’s not even reading the Herald, a symbol of reading in general, gathering information and thoughtfully digesting it.

So, what’s going on with the rugby game?

Behind our symbolic popular reddish avatar, there’s some black and white rugby action. Who are the players? Why is it in black and white? Are the two tacklers going to stop this ball carrier rampaging through our hero, like Mal Meninga on the burst, hitting the line at speed in the 1992 Canberra Raiders?

First, a hunch on the player: he looks both old, and old school. Internet sleuths have searched high and low through countless team photos, but the plain fact is, he looks more like a late-career Colin Meads or Brian Lochore than any contempory rugby professional.

To get a second opinion, we ran the player’s face through the image AIs function that generates similar images. And they all came back looking elderly too. So it’s not just us. This is a golden oldies game.

The next puzzle is why the rugby is in black and white, and what it’s got to do with our reddish hero. There’s a clue, perhaps, in the image above, in the numeral on the left-most player’s back. It’s hard to tell 100% from the angle, but it’s possible the numeral on the right is missing a small piece of serif and he’s number 21 (and therefore reserve halfback) but it’s unlikely. Rugby numbers aren’t known for beautiful typography, but even still, it’d be an unusually ugly font to have a serif extend into the top right of the 1 like that. Much more likely: this image has been reversed, suggesting the game, like the hipster avatar, is not in fact a real game, but a representation of game: a memory of a game, a dream or an imagined scenario.

OK, what the hell is going on? What does this all have to do with subscriber benefits?

Using all the evidence presented above, the official Spinoff verdict is as follows: The hipster man is an idealised representation of not a Herald reader, but the Herald staff. The man is reading and digesting a foreign newspaper to find the score of an obscure local golden oldies rugby match, and his superior knowledge and imagination allows him to picture the match in details as he reads. And the watch symbolises the timely manner in which subscribers receive their paper each morning.

Case closed.