Jay-Z, are you reading me?

(Credit: RocNation Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Sadness and hope often hold hands, but the latter can never decide whether she can make the former happy.

This story is either sad or strangely hopeful. Either way, it's also missing a couple of facts.

For this is the story of David Johnson, who believes that Jay-Z reads his emails.

In a moving telling to BuzzFeed, Johnson says he has sent at least 262 e-mails to Jay-Z and that he believes Jay-Z is reading them.

At least, he thinks he's sending them to Jay-Z.

Johnson, who once campaigned mightily to get a chance in the NBA -- a quest documented by the New York Times -- won't reveal how he got hold of the rapper's email address.

Yet he claims that the ReadNotify software he uses informs him when his e-mails are opened. The software, he says, has told him that the location data he gets coincides with that of Jay-Z's tour or traveling schedule.

Johnson's e-mails are reportedly personal, a one-way self-expression sent in the belief that one of the most famous people in the world is actually listening.

"If someone says it's weird or creepy, I say they're not trying hard enough in life," Johnson, a 27-year... [Read more]