We’re not assholes, claim Winklevoss twins

Sometimes life and art imitate each other to the extent they become indistinguishable: Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, fictionalised in the Facebook movie The Social Network, have issued a statement clarifying that they are not assholes.
 
The privileged twins, who claim Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for a website and turned it into billion-dollar empire Facebook, sent an open letter to their old Ivy League school, Harvard.
 
The two identical young men, who rowed for the US at the Olympics, are upset after a former president of their alma mater, who was subsequently an economic adviser to the White House, called them "assholes" in public.
 
Larry Summers told the Fortune Brainstorm tech conference in Aspen, Colorado earlier this week about the famous incident when the cocky – and cosseted – twins asked to meet him to discuss Zuckerberg's alleged theft of their ideas.
 
That meeting is a particularly entertaining scene in David Fincher's Oscar-winning film. Seeing the pair of undergraduates arrive overdressed in matching suits, the fictionalised Summers sneers: "From the looks of it they want to sell me a Brooks Brothers franchise."
 
It seems the real-life Summers was even ruder. Speaking in Aspen, he said: "One of the things you learn as a college president is that if an undergraduate is wearing a tie and jacket on Thursday afternoon at three o'clock, there are two possibilities.
 
"One is that they're looking for a job and have an interview; the other is that they are an asshole. This was the latter case."

Summers went on: "Rarely have I encountered such swagger, and I tried to respond in kind. I've heard it said that I can be arrogant. If that's true, I surely was on that occasion."

The Winklevosses, known on the internet as Winklevii, would arguably have done well to rise above Summers's comment. Instead, they have delighted gossip fans with a 600-word defence.

They write: "[Summers'] manner was not inconsistent with his reputation and present day admissions of being tactfully challenged. [He failed] to shake hands with the three of us upon entering his office (doing so would have required him to take his feet off his desk and stand up from his chair)."

Misunderstanding the nature of irony, they add: "Ironically, our choice of attire that day was made out of respect and deference to the office of the President." ·