This is not Bill Gates's Daughter. It's like in The Matrix: There is no spoon. Do not try and bend Bill Gates's daughter. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. There is no daughter. Then you'll see, that it is not Bill Gates's daughter that bends, it is only yourself.

A few weeks ago when I was looking up pictures of Bill Gates (as one often does), I stumbled across these pictures of Bill Gates's so-called “daughter,” Jennifer Gates. To say I was skeptical would be an understatement. However, just because she's cute doesn't mean she can't be of or related to Bill Gates, it just makes it unlikely. Ivanka Trump came from Donald after all, even Chris Elliott managed to produce Abby Elliott. A hot enough mom will make up for any of inefficiencies with the father's contribution. A 10 mom and a 4 dad should produce, at least, a daughter who's a 7. Although, it's almost never as mathematically even as that. DNA is unpredictable, hotness can come from almost any combination of ugly genes. Even unfortunateness like Bruce Willis face and Billy Joel face can happen.

But back to Bill Gates. The problem is being a well known connoisseur of cute brunettes, I was instantly able to identify this picture as Rachael Leigh Cook (even as unbrunette as the pictures may be). Ever wonder what happened to Rachael Leigh Cook? No. Well, I have, and apparently she's been posing as Bill Gates's daughter at cocktail parties. So, how did Ms. Cook get embroiled in these internet shenanigans? Maybe, it was penance for the awful movie Antitrust, which also starred Tim Robbins as a Bill Gates wannabe if Bill Gates was the world's nerdiest Bond villain. Or, maybe, it's because Bill Gates's wife, Melinda, looks vaguely like Cook if you squint real hard and rubbed Vaseline all over your computer screen (now how I knew there was Vaseline by your computer screen is the real mystery). One reason Rachael could have been used in this prank is since she hasn't done anything in 10 years, she's recognizable enough to seem familiar, but not to actually pinpoint who she is... unless, of course, you're a Rachael Leigh Cook superfan (which I am). It's anonymity without being actually anonymous. You know her, but you don't know her, so her being Jennifer Gates is entirely possible.

From what I could tell this particular rumor started as a chain letter then someone added the clever tag line “The Best product from Microsoft,” to the photos and from email to email it replicated into internet fact. And if enough people say Jennifer Gates starred in She's All That then it must be true. But why are we so ready to believe? That's the thing that really fascinated me about all the websites and YouTube videos that promoted these pictures as the genuine article. Not that so many people simply believed them to be true, but how readily and obediently they believed them to be true. Like I said, when you see the truth, you'll see that it is not Bill Gates's daughter that bends, it is only yourself. We believe that Cook is Gates's daughter because we need to believe it.

Why we want Jennifer Gates to be Hot

The first reason, the simple reason, is it's a bonus. Every programmer dreams this dream: you code your little hearts out in school, get hired by Microsoft, meet Bill Gates's daughter at orientation, woo said daughter after orientation, marry daughter in first week, and never work again. Now this fantasy unfolds no matter what his daughter looks like, but it becomes a bonus when she's hot. Anyone would jump on top of Rachael Leigh Cook regardless of how many billions of dollars she was set to inherit.

But the deeper reason we want her to be cute is the rabbit hole cute leads down. Cute goes to Hot goes to Slutty. A hot daughter is a curse we wish on Bill Gates, a pox on his family. There's nothing but bad days when your once sweet little girl becomes Paris Hilton. Okay, so you 56 billion dollars, it doesn't make up for your daughter starring in a night vision fueled sex romp. A small part of us wants his daughter to be beautiful on the very, very off chance we can marry into the Gates fortune. This is minute even in fantasies. The larger part of us wants her to be hot so we can see this end badly.