I like Amy. She’s an advice columnist, and she’s got moxie. Moxie is something I respect. Whether I agree with her politics is irrelevant. There are plenty of people I respect and admire, even though we disagree about things. As it happens, I agree with her quite a bit, but that’s got nothing to do with anything, as far as I’m concerned.
Other people disagree. By other people, I refer to the Slackoisie who follow Tintin at . He’s got a hate on Amy Alkon like you wouldn’t believe. So he’s enlisted the entire third grade to engage in a smear campaign against her. From Patterico’s Pontifications, they have targeted Amy’s new book, I See Rude People , at Amazon for fake and destructive reviews.
And it’s working.I haven’t read Amy’s new book. I’m still waiting for her to send me a review copy. I’m patient. But this attack by the Lord of the Flies is not merely a disgrace, but an affront to anyone who believes that ideas, people who espouse ideas and people who write them down so that they end up in a book, should be subject to the revenge of the playground when the children don’t like her.For example, a Sadly, No commenter boasts of having left this one-star review :
If you want to learn how to be really rude and obnoxious and yet keep some weird semblance of self-esteem with a large dollop of ego on top, this book is for you! Arnold Alkon has many lessons on how to set straight innocent people who might have the misfortune of crossing her path and pissing her off. A must read for anyone who lives in the same town as Mr Alkon!
Sadly, No commenters have gone en masse and voted this review as “helpful.” As of this writing, almost 80 people have voted this review helpful — meaning it is now the first review people see when people look up Amy’s book.
The Sadly No blog is a monument to immaturity and narcissism. That’s fine too, as the Slackoisie need somewhere to go during the day since they clearly will never be employable adults. But to engage in this smear campaign against Amy because they disagree with her views, and to do so in such an overt (and childish) manner for the purpose of harming her financially by faking negative reviews, rather than challenging her ideas, is total garbage.
My guess is that my politics are far closer to those of the kiddies at Sadly No, and yet I am disgusted that these children have no more useful way to spend their time than try to harm someone for disagreeing with them. To the flies, I say leave Amy Alkon alone. To the rest of you, support Amy and don’t let the swarm get the better of us.
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Who will take that review seriously when it refers to the author as Arnold Alkon and Mr. Alkon?
That’s one of the “jokes” the children find totally hilarious, to call Amy Arnold as if she’s a man. What a knee slapper.
Why so serious?
What kind of a narcissitic idiot has an email address “worldruler”?
What kind of superficial idiot judges people by their e-mail address?
(And what kind of regular idiot doesn’t bother to use the spell-check feature on his own blog? It’s “narcissistic.”)
Way to show your age, teacup (oops,I mean world ruler). It’s all in the spell check. No doubt your computer genuis will be better appreciated by the rest of the children at Sadly No.
Yes, I can see how it might take a genius to use the button clearly marked “Check Spelling.”
It’s sad, really. You’re like Alkon, unable (or perhaps unwilling) to understand the culture of the Internet. So you take offense at our customs and violate our most sacred taboos, and when someone comes to educate you, you blow him off as a “narcissi(s)tic idiot.”
On this, you’re right. I’m not ready to hand over the keys to you yet. Amy isn’t ready either, no doubt.
Uh, one of the Internet taboos is to make spelling a point of criticism as all of us make such mistakes. One man’s taboo…
I do find Sadly No’s crew largely composed of children. While I’m not enamored with Amy, I do find this type of attack dishonest (in all ways), petty, and childish.
The irony is that the children have decided that I’m a neocon for siding with Amy. They seriously scare the crap out of me. Never in the history of mankind have so many inexperienced, ignorant children been given as much opportunity to wreak havoc and embolden themselves as they have today on the internet. It’s not that I want to silence them, but it would be nice if they had the capacity to think before they do something stupid.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by ScottGreenfield: @amyalkon This is for you. http://bit.ly/9Y5WGG
Hey I was about to give to the Red Cross Haiti fund but I’m so glad I found “Saving Amy Alkon” instead – is my contribution tax-deductible, and are you getting Bono this year?
Almost funny.
Huh? And which one of those guys up there is Amy?
p.s. has my name caught on yet?
that’s fair. it needed tweaking
See, that’s not funny. It’s just childish and stupid. If your purpose was to prove that Sadly No adherents are witless, you’ve accomplished your task.
yet another ancient rule of the internets (andrew’s over-earnestness notwithstanding): if it caused you to flame up in hostility and defensiveness, chances are it was funny. more school: being a good sport shows wit *and* grace, that’s how you win. (a public-service message brought to you by No One Holds the Keys.)
p.s. who called you a neocon?
p.p.s. did you check with alkon before posting this? crusading for her is a nice gesture, but completely undermines the premise of her book.
Being a “good sport” about it is fine when everyone agrees that it’s all in jest. The problem arises when it’s either not all in jest, or not everyone wants to play your game. What was done to Amy Alkon was in jest, and reflects the same humor of the pack that one often finds in gang rapes and riots. Do you think they’re funny? Yet ask the participants, and they tell you that they only did it because everyone else was doing it.
The ancient rule of the internets doesn’t trump the ancient rule of real life. Wit and grace are often a good way of deflecting when stung by sarcasm, but they don’t work well when viciously, falsely and wrongly attacked by a pack of mindless, camp-following children. Nor is it left to the lowest common denominator to decide how the other side should properly react. That’s their call, not yours.
Amy didn’t ask for my help, nor approve it, but then I didn’t ask her permission before speaking my mind. Of course, my audience is primarily lawyers, and thus isn’t the same as SN. My aim isn’t to meet your expectations, but to alert grownups as to what the children are up to.
How’s this for irony?
That’s from this post on Sadly, No.
Greenfield has, time after time, shown himself perfectly willing and able to make people flame up in hostility and defensiveness with his words.
He does it by telling the truth (starting with his own identity), which is much more challenging (and therefore funnier) than doing it by lying from the cover of anonymity.
eliciting diatribe: same rules apply, but more to self-proclaimed humorists than crusaders. it’ll all start to make sense when you get that review copy…i’ll leave you lawyers to it before it gets too “mammalish” in here [smile]
I’m not too sure about that. I’m not getting any younger, you know.
shg,
I read SN for a while in college but when the google reader list reached a certain size, it ceased to be a priority.
My question for you is, does Amy Alkon’s practice of finding commenters and emailers who (presumably) wish to remain anonymous and posting their information, including employer etc, qualify as a moral equivalent of what Tintin is doing?
I remember her posting on something Biden said with regards to civili liberties, gently reminding her that it was nothing next to sponsoring the RAVE act, and then seeing my comment deleted with the snarky aside that she had dealt with yet another SN clone.
For someone who gets paid to bullshit, as all social commentators are, it takes some serious gumption to complain about unpaid bullshitters using your medium against you.
The short answer is no, as this wasn’t generated by Tintin’s post, or the hundreds of comments about Amy Alkon there. That would have been the moral equivalent, and I’ve got no problem with one blogger slamming another, even if it devolves into something dishonest. Hey, live by the sword, die by the sword. Criticism is fair game in the blogosphere.
But calling others to write false reviews of her book on Amazon is another matter. That was what went over the line, and nothing Amy Alkon did on her blog, how repugnant her opinions or handling of comments may have been, justifies it.
rest assured that no one wrote *false* reviews. all of the negative reviews i read spoke directly to the book and its arguments with accuracy and precision. (it’s a safe guess that very few S, N readers secretly like the book.)
that said, it turns out to be more fun discussing the ethics of amazon book reviewing with a defense lawyer than with, say, an emotionally unstable author. emotionally stable authors tend not to be interested and find poorly written, misspelled one-star user reviews complimentary.
and while we’re reflecting on ethical questions of little or no consequence…in some circles, publicly wielding part of an unpublished email address to make your point is considered boorish – douche-bagged, if you will. welcome to Rome.
Those circles don’t concern me at all. I’m not here to bolster anonymous witlessness, and am far more inclined to out the moron for the benefit of humanity than honor the anonymity code of the slackoisie (see, you may borrow the word but it will never be yours).
As for the review not being false, or my resting assured because you say so, I’m equally unconvinced. You don’t exactly carry much weight around here.
In other circles, internet anonymity is considered generally cowardly, and most people hiding behind it are seen as deserving of outing. In these circles, exceptions are made for Iranian Dissidents and Club Ned members, among a short list of others.
When the circles meet, hilarity ensues!
thanks for the warm welcome, and enjoy the book. your reply to “why so serious?” has elevated the human condition as much as your self-entertainment at the term you have coined, and credited yourself with in the urban dictionary. HAND 🙂
on this, we agree. kumbaya.
case in point: my response there was hasty and somewhat artless. i should have left it at “yes, slackoisie will always be yours alone” but such is the spontaneity and permanence of the internets…
Point of order. I didn’t invent Slackoisie, and the attribution to me in the Urban Dictionary is wrong. I don’t know who input it, but I regret that Dan Hull, the person who came up with the word, was denied his due. I’ve tried to have them change it to no avail.
But such is the spontaneity and permanence of the internets…