Q: What do you get when you mix overweening self-regard with extreme self-pity and a total lack of self-awareness?
A: TechCrunch.
Oh, how these guys have been victimized! Oh, how brilliant they are, how much better than everyone else, and how nobly they suffer for their art and for freedom of expression! Oh, how they mock their tormentors, and laugh even as they are scourged and whipped and hung to die on the cross of corporate greed! Oh, the wringing of hands! The gnashing of teeth! The backstabbing and betrayal! The secret deals and corporate scheming! The lust for power! Oh, how they keep on moaning about their plight, not realizing that we’re not laughing with them, we’re laughing at them.
First, Paul Carr (above, at left) posts an article in which he quits in a huff, vowing to take his revenge on Arianna Huffington by depriving her of his pointless once-a-week columns. Then Erick Schonfeld (above right) accepts the resignation but calls Paul Carr some names and tells him to get stuffed. Then M.G. Siegler (above, middle, blue hair) has a huff of his own on his personal blog. So much huffing! Everyone’s in a snit!
Paul Carr (aka Shakes) has no idea what he’ll do next, but he just don’t give a shite cause that’s how he rolls! M.G. can’t understand why the people who run AOL have not reached out to him during all this, though, as he puts it, with the bad-ass “swagger” for which TechCrunch is known, “I’m not losing any sleep over it.” Obviously not, right? I mean obviously he hasn’t given it a second thought about why AOL hasn’t called him, which is why he’s writing about it.
Anyway it’s probably just as well that AOL didn’t call M.G. because those backstabbing stiffs and corporate mofos at AOL sure as hell could not handle the truth that M.G. would be firing down the line at them, all loud and upper case and shit, just bam-bam-bam oh-no-you-di’n't-oh-yes-I-did. Or maybe M.G. wouldn’t even pick up that call at all. He’d see “Tim Armstrong” in the caller ID on his swagger-ass iPhone 4 and just say, Fuck it, that corporate motherfucker can go through to voice mail and kiss my white ass on the way. Because really — think about it. Why would a bad-ass renegade writer of the Truth even pick up the phone and say hello to some suit from AOL who doesn’t know jack shit about being a bad-ass swaggering tech journalist, amiright?
How’s it feel to be ignored, Arianna? Because you know what? You suck. Yeah, that’s right. I just said that. I just wrote that. On a blog. On TechCrunch. The blog you own. And I wrote it about you. And there ain’t nothing you can do about it because it’s out there. The whole world is gonna read it now and they will all know exactly what I think about you. That’s right! This is my barbaric yawp that tears the friggin scalp right off your entire bullshit capitalism system which I despise in a kind of techno-beat-poet style even as I make a living off it. Wallow in the irony of that if you can even wrap your tiny mind around my reality, okay? All that is what I’m saying to you when I don’t pick up your phone call, Arianna. And you can just read between the lines and feel the pain of my implied blow-off, rich lady who bought my Web site and wants to ruin it.
M.G. also reassures his readers that “no matter what happens,” he’ll be fine. Maybe so, but the worlds of technology and journalism will never be the same! How fitting it is for this band of courageous hacks to go out in a blaze of glory. Burn with fury, oh poets of the Valley! Rage against the dying of the light! Long after you are gone the world will remember that once — yes, once, in a different time — there lived men like you, brave giants who strode the earth with swagger and fuck-you attitude, who feared not the wrath of their corporate overlords, who turned defiant faces upward and bit — yes, bit, with sharpened teeth — the hand that fed them, who stood loyal beside their King and Leader and refused to break ranks when surrounded by the enemy, vowing instead to fight to their last breath.
This — yes, this! This glory, this wonder! This was Camelot! This, my friends, was TechCrunch.
I love this post, truthfully sums it all up in a humourous way. I stopped reading TC a long time ago mostly because of MG’s sensational bs.
wow.
Bee-yut-i-ful. So much lovely snark and delicious sniping.
I think wow sums it up nicely.
fan-friggin’-tastic.
This, as opposed to your decades-long anti-Jobsian nonsense?
Kenneth Branagh best actor for Henry V; TechCrunch best actor for Startups.
That was genius
I love me some Mikey. True bromance.
Now that was a damn good read
Boggles the mind. Seriously wondering why HuffPo is paying for this twaddle. If I was editor or in this case, masochist in charge of herding cats, I’d revoke this lot all their privileges on and off the web site, clean house and replace with half a dozen green up and coming interns and spend the rest of the afternoon dining on overdone lobster tails and molesting overage strippers. What a racket!
I love the smell of lawsuit in the morning.
I’m trying to call you, why aren’t you answering my calls?
You forgot to mention that Arrington never named his successor, although Paul indicated that it was unfortunate that the most qualified person for the position was on leave with baby pending #areukiddingme. Oh, and these same folks are the same ones that sucked from the aol teet for 360 days and never once complained about not being reached out to. If aol had balls they would fire these insubordinate employees and not taken this shit. Have some self respect. But they won’t, cause they don’t. And Arrington is #winning all the way knowing exactly how this was going to play out. We will see soon enough how this loyalty is repaid. Don’t try take “thanks” to the bank.
Last year, that so-called Angelgate. This year, this. What “edgy” thing can they cook up just before next year’s Disrupt?
@RealDanLyons – Delicious stuff. You are very funny and I hope I never say anything to upset you. Who the heck is “michael arrington”?
The irony is that on one hand they want complete independence from AOL, and on the other the writers are complaining about not having heard from AOL! You can’t have it both ways. It just shows that this is just bitching for the sake of bitching.
If AOL had been in touch with them, the posts would have been about how they are not left alone.
These guys think a lot of themselves, but Techcrunch was Arrington. Carr didn’t even post that often, and he wrote uninteresting personal posts. It isn’t as if the are missing a gem if he leaves – a guy that was carrying the voice of Techcrunch on his own. There is nothing else in any of these other writers that could support it staying as the top source of tech news.
The real reason all this has blown up, is the real reason all arguments on the Internet are cyclical and infinite.
Both sides are dicks.
Huffington’s a dick who exploits the willing labor of a cabillion lame, wannabe journos while cynically pocketing the revenue stream from the aggregate traffic generated.
Arrington’s a dick who doesn’t see any conflict in running a VC company while editing a blog about start-ups. His word should be his bond!
Der.
See, Mike, no one is an oracle. No one sees all sides. No one is truly neutral. If this debacle can teach you anything, let it teach you that.
Fortunately for us, for consumers, this is just the first wave of online journalism. The Huff Po and TechCrunch are Usenet and mailing lists compared to what’s coming. Can you hear the gong, friends?
Amateur hour’s nearly over.
Who are you again? I missed the part where it says you are qualified to opine. On anything.
Great read and much better than what’s in TC!
What Kara said. And also, yowza!
Interesting – the idea that having an opinion on the Internet requires a) identification and b) qualification. I’m doubtful whether it’ll catch on though.
Profound. What lays ahead that no one imagines now. I remember Compuserve. Hadn’t thought of it in years.
What Kara said… and also, Yowza!
Yowza. So much goodness in here it’s hard to pick one favorite line, but I’ll go with “all loud and upper case and shit, just bam-bam-bam oh-no-you-di’n’t-oh-yes-I-did.”
At least someone gets to say it.
BOOM, SMITHEREENS ROASTIN’ ‘EM
I thought I was the only person in the world who ever saw Shakes The Clown.
Well done on this post. So entertaining and so accurate to the real situation.
The TechCrunch crew doesn’t seem to realize that if TechCrunch went away tomorrow, it really wouldn’t make much difference in anyone’s lives but their own.. It’s a fucking blog, and not a particularly well written either. Get over yourselves please.
Thank you, Dan. That is all.
Arianna looked good on that horse.
Since when did Ken Branagh turn into such a douchy actor? I totally missed this turd of a movie.
This “turd of a movie” is generally considered his artistic high-water mark, and is one of the best Shakespeare adaptations ever set to film. Consider reading a book.
Thank you for writing this. Saved me the effort. Was going to say the same thing.
I never read Techcrunch to begin with, so I was way ahead of all of you. Surprised though, to read in a previous post that Arianna Huffington is over six feet tall. Are you sure about that? She never struck me as being so physically imposing, but more the Zsa Zsa of the blogging world.
And thank you for the post. I was dying reading it.
It’s a gossip rag about technology companies. This is the National Enquirer mixed with brain-dead reality TV infighting. Why does anyone care at all?
Assuming you’re both talking about Shakes the Clown and Bobcat Goldthwaith, thank you for standing up for this important film.
Peter Kafka calls it the Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies, and I could not agree more.
So good……best post I have read in a LONG time…..
Everything that needs to be said about the AOL/Tech Crunch drama can be expressed by looking at the company’s org chart on WikiOrgCharts.com If you know where people fit in share your intelligence.
http://Www.wikiorgcharts.com/orgchart/urecord/companyid_36/
AMEN! This post epitomizes why you continue to be one of my favourite writers to read. As Maj.Charles Winchester would say, “I am cut – nay – SLASHED by your rapier wit!”
Michael Blowen of the Boston Globe wrote that, not kafka.
Thanks for informing. I’d only heard that line from Kafka.
nicely done as always, and I couldn’t agree more, goddamit.
meanwhile, on a related note:
http://www.esarcasm.com/22810/im-leaving-esarcasm-heres-why/
and of course:
http://www.esarcasm.com/22822/dan-i-accept-your-resignation/
Well, Toby, he is the tech editor at newsweek among other things. And you would be?
Amazing post. Overall, the best part about MG is his own Twitter bio. A self-proclaimed renegade, that guy!
Because so many true renegades and outlaws actually called themselves as such.
Amazing post. The best part about MG is his own Twitter bio. A self-proclaimed renegade!
…Because that’s what a real outlaw-renegade does.
don’t leave in a huff. that’s too quick — leave in a huff and a half. or if all that is not fast enough, leave in half a huff.
hey toby – use google much? go look at newsweek, daily beast, or da capo press/perseus publishing group. ya know, on the internet? the thing you’re looking at now? unless your son is reading it for you, geezer.
it’s the citizen kane of alcoholic clown movies!
I wish I could write half as well as you just did. And the picture is perfect, where almost all others are rarely relevant.
Muchos Gracias for your blog.Truly looking forward to read more. Really Great.