Nerd Mentality

Wherein I Weigh In On Some Dumb Bullshit

Posted December 30th 2011 by J Edison Thomas.

As a bored nerd during a slow work week, I've been soaking up all the Paul Christoforo vs. the Internet kerfuffle, and loving every minute of it. I passed along hilarious meme GIFs, updated friends on steroid abuse allegations, and added THE WHOLE F*CKING BEEFALO to my daily lexicon.  I really had a gay old time.

It's winding down now, and the last word on everything might well end up being this lame but not entirely indefensible "blame everyone equally" piece on Kotaku. But reading through this, and a few other articles on the "event," something strikes me: People may be unaware of exactly what Christoforo did wrong.

Christoforo himself is the first person who appears to have missed the point entirely.  In this interview on MSNBC.com,  he delivers the half-hearted mea culpa of a child who resents his punishment too much to fully accept his blame:

Yet while admitting he handled things badly, Christoforo said he also felt the situation could have been different if [Mike "Gabe"] Krahulik approached the situation differently.

"He called me a bully, but he was being a bully ... especially when he emailed me out of the blue, saying 'That's f***ing s***ty, you're banned from PAX,' I was like 'Who the f*** are you? That's how you introduce yourself? ... I dont want to call him out, but he could have gone about that a totally different way, he could have said, 'Hey, I run the show, that email was a little unprofessional, if you don't do something to apologize I don't want you at my show.' But he just came at me and said, indirectly, 'Hey, f*** you, you're banned from PAX.' Is that what you'd call professional? I wouldn't."

The first thing to notice, for those who read the original email chain, is that Christoforo's recollection of events was much harsher than what was delivered. Krahulik's actual response was this:

"Holy shit this is unbelievable. Dave, if this guy has a booth at Pax east we will cancel it."

It isn't directed at Christoforo himself, and it only characterizes the altercation as "unbelievable," not "fucking shitty." Similarly, in the article Christoforo also characterizes Dave's pre-explosion emails as "Hey you piece of shit," which is also a far way off from the truth.* It's easy to see why he acts like such a prick, since he seems to have an insecure, distorted impression of incoming dialog that escalates anything even moderately challenging to Threat Level Midnight.

Overall, though, Christoforo's more jarring delusion appears to be that his mistake was he "messed with the wrong guy." And, well, yes. That was a major miscalculation. But that isn't why people are mad at him. It isn't even that he was a dick.  A lot of people are dicks. Krahulik himself is a dick, and that's part of the reason I've been reading his site for a decade.

So I'll highlight with amazing specificity the embers that led directly to this firestorm. By my guess, maybe two or three lines made the difference between this being a "lol customer service dickhead" story and a "grab the rifles and tear up this fucker" Internet battle.  They are this:

"... you think you speak for billions son your just a kid you speak for yourself no one cares what you think that's why were growing and moving 20-50 thousand controllers a month."

And this:

"Send that over to Engadget you look like a complete moron swearing and sending your customer service complaints to a magazine as if they will post it or even pay attention do you think you're the first or the last what are they going to do demand us to tell you were your shipment is or ask for a refund on your behalf ..."

Technically this should be several lines, but by the magic of awful grammar they only amount to two.  And they are really the heart of the beast. The "big boy hat" patronizing, the "people high up on the food chain" belittling, the "you just got told bitch" braggadocio; that counts for something, sure. But this is the real devil.  Because it's a dare.

Christoforo says, in effect, "Scream? Go ahead and scream. It won't matter."

Melodramatic, maybe, but I have little doubt that this is what ignited the former-victim anger in Krahulik. Not that he doesn't openly delight in being a prick, or that anybody doesn't enjoy an excuse to kick some ass and get praised for it, but these words are a near-explicit call for someone to step in.  These two lines contain a bizarre sort of real-life villainy, the cackle of a creep who feels unassailable in the shadows.

So I would have to disagree with Kotaku's Owen Good on this one. Christoforo certainly took the first swing, misreading Dave's question—pointing out the awful business practice of using sudden discounts to entice new customers before satisfactorily serving existing customers—as some sort of threat. Which makes sense, if his recollection of the exchange reflects the warped way he absorbed it at the time.  His response took things from a gritted-teeth exchange to open hostility.

To claim that Dave tipping off various gaming publications is tantamount to Christoforo's name-dropping of alleged industry allies is also misguided if not disingenuous. The difference is very much the difference between light and dark.  Dave is offering the threat of sunlight—that Christoforo should watch what he says because the exchange will be judged in the level field of the public eye.  Christoforo, alternately, is shutting the blinds—suggesting that his friends will look the other way and nobody will know what happened here.

And truly, sunlight is the only weapon that Krahulik brandished, either. Banning him from PAX, sure. Who wouldn't ban an asshole from their establishment for causing a ruckus with a fan? Otherwise, all Krahulik did was shine a light on Christoforo's words. There is no call to action. No "Let's get this prick fired." It's nothing more than the threat of exposure that Christoforo had previously laughed off and appeared to gladly accept before it became a reality.

Undoubtedly, being the fucking consummate dickhead laid a whole lot of kindling for the third-degree burns Christoforo received over the past week. And it makes it damn near impossible for nerds to sympathize with him, even if he may well be, in a tragic way, mentally incapable of understanding his faults. But hopefully, at some point he recognizes that more than Revenge of the Nerds warfare or picking on the wrong guy, the cause of all this was his boast that darkness would conceal his mistreatment of another.  In the 21st century, and in particular the realm of the Internet, this is quite a remarkably offensive crime.

I will agree, ultimately, with Good's general call for civility.  I don't think anyone comes away from a fight without looking a little ugly—not from the bruises of the opponent's assaults, but from the savagery of his own. Going straight for the balls, biting, or just generally adopting the feral look of someone who enjoys abusing another human being. It's ugly.

People tend to underestimate the power of their own words, and typically use harsher (and far more) words than are necessary to sting their target. Christoforo certainly deserved to be fired (I would expect to be for treating any customer the same way) and maybe that could have been achieved without going hog wild over him with personal threats.  Letters to his employer could have gotten there. Starting a petition to have him fired may have been the appropriately neutered response. Who knows.

In hindsight, it's easy to look at all the facts with a steady hand, see how things could have been done differently, and assign blame.  And indisputably that's Good's editorial in a nutshell. But it would be dumb to just be the next guy in line to say to him, "YOU really could have done THAT differently," so I'll leave it at that.

At the end of the day, I have to admit that I probably would have acted exactly as Krahulik did. And I would only feel the slightest pang of unease at the macho posturing that goes hand-in-hand with playing John Wayne for a day. Maybe it's for the best that nobody comes away from a fight looking completely pristine.

*It is possible that Dave or Krahulik doctored their emails before publishing them, but unless Christoforo has a claim against them there's no reason to assume so.

Tags: paul christoforo, penny arcade, ocean marketing

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