asshole of the day

[lagilman]

If someone with strong digital skills has not already made a gif of Vanna turning tiles to show “ASSHOLE,” I’m disowning the lot of you.

Comments

[paulliver.livejournal.com]

While I disagree with him on this point, this is also the man who said he'd quit if they replaced Vanna with a younger woman, so "asshole" is probably too strong of a word.

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

He claims he was parodying the hyperbole used against global-warming deniers. He forgot Twitter is not a place for parody.

[lagilman]

Yeah - two days after the fact. I suspect his mouth ran ahead of his PR firm.

(if it was an attempt at parody, he should stick to reading scripts, 'cause man, he's bad at it)

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

I follow his Twitter account. There's a lot of sarcastic humor. I can see how this could be one that got out of hand.

[lagilman]

yeah, if so, then posting that without context or frame was.... a poor decision. Twitter's not always the best place for that, as others have learned to their dismay - that's why we have parody accounts (and even then run afoul, sometimes).

He should not have let it go two days without addressing the fail, though. That made it worse.

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

Twitter is an outrage machine. It's already been shown time and again no one cares about context. People just enjoy stirring themselves up into a frenzy for some reason. I have no interest in defending Sajak, I'm sure he can speak for himself however and whenever he cares to, but as someone who has himself been pounced on, berated, and scolded like a child by people willfully misinterpreting a tweet as recently as this week, I can't help but feel a little bad for him.

[lagilman]

Hrm. Your experience with Twitter is vastly different from mine, then. I've seen more arguments and willful misunderstandings on Facebook, and have several years' worth of positive experiences on Twitter, even when I'm being corrected on something.

And Sajak said it, so he needs to take whatever flack comes from it - especially, as i said, since he let it go two days without addressing the possible misunderstanding, which is very much something you can't do on social media.

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

Oh, I much prefer Twitter to Facebook! I left Facebook back in 2012, as you recall, and I've been much happier since!

Personally, I wish I'd merely been corrected on something. Instead, I was berated and accused of some very mean and untrue things. And by a friend, no less! Twitter is as crazy as Facebook sometimes.

[paulliver.livejournal.com]

I've learned to be very careful in my wording on the Internet over the years, since it lacks the context of body language, tone of voice, etc, and I still put my foot in it more often on the Net than in real life. One of these days, I'll get the hang of being opinionated without pissing people off.

[lagilman]

Can't be done. If you're going to be opinionated ANYWHERE you will piss people off, because they'll hold different opinions, some of them quite strongly. The trick is to pick opinions you're willing to stand behind.

[paulliver.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. One of the reasons I don't watch the news very often is because the opinions I am most willing to stand behind aren't variable with daily events. Most people want to be heard more than spoken to anyway.

[lagilman]

You can be a good friend to someone and still be an utter asshole.

In fact, I'd say "asshole" is a pretty mild term, considering his stated comment. "Moron" is up there, too. But the site that so-named him isn't mine, and he's in some.... unglorious company, now.

[paulliver.livejournal.com]

Never having met the man, nor read anything about him beyond what we just discussed, I can't really say one way or another.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Ah, I see you have a Nigel Farage type too. Sigh.