Writers & Other Virtual Sadists

Monday I talked about Black Mirror, including the episode last season where a programmer creates his own Star Trek-ish ship and fills it with versions of his coworkers he can torment.  To a lesser extent, writers do this too.  Some more than others.  You can even order T-shirts or mugs or stuff saying things like, "You Are Dangerously Close to Being Killed Off in My Novel."

Or something like this:

I guess it's kind of funny.  I pretty much outgrew that stuff in junior high.  I mean I tried it once or twice, but it didn't really bring me any joy or anything.  It felt pretty hollow.  It reminds me of when I was reading Michael Chabon's Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and during the early days of WWII the comic book writer and artist have their superhero take on the Nazis and yet it's never really satisfying because in the end reality doesn't change.

That really is something that should have been addressed in the episode.  Even for sadists the fun of torturing small animals wears out, which is why they usually seek bigger game.  Not that writers who do this are sadists...necessarily.  Though I suppose if you routinely do it then you might be.

I don't write people in to kill them or torture them anymore, but sometimes I like to put little Easter Eggs in.  I think in one Scarlet Knight story I had a law firm called Pagel, Offutt, and Leon or something like that.  Or sometimes if I need to come up with names I'll borrow them from sports people or authors or TV shows.  Like one recent story I used combinations of names from Mystery Science Theater 3000 because I was watching it quite a bit recently.  But that's not really the same thing.

So do you use real people in your stories?  (Bonus points if you've put me in a story!)