Salon Takes Aim at Patton Oswalt Again, Is Once Again Publicly Embarrassed

[unrepentant progress]

As soon as Patton Oswalt began cleverly trolling Twitter last Wednesday afternoon, it was only a matter of time before Salon had a comment about it. Patton’s little online experiment involved tweeting out apologies for past tweets he claimed to have deleted because they were offensive, only those initial tweets never actually existed. In other words, he was apologizing for things he hadn’t really said, just to see if the usual suspects would come out of the woodwork to express outrage over, literally, nothing. Of course they did, with one person after another trying to shame Patton for words they hadn’t really read so much as crafted in their own minds. One person even created a diagram of one of Patton’s phony apology tweets and dissected why it just wasn’t funny. The whole thing so perfectly made a mockery of the relentless “call-out culture” that now permeates social media that some even wondered aloud, right then and there, when Salon would get involved.

...

Late last week, Patton told Craig Ferguson that the goal of his latest troll campaign really was to show that many of the so-called social justice warriors on Twitter are constantly on the lookout for something to be offended by — and in the absence of anything real, they’ll settle for entirely contrived outrage. Salon has basically made these people its bread and butter, giving them a platform and even exploiting their various grievances in the name of the almighty page-view. With very few exceptions — even fewer than before now that Alex Pareene and Brian Beutler have left for First Look and The New Republic, respectively — the site isn’t even about journalism anymore. It’s about spinning impotent outrage into revenue by putting people like Miles Klee in a dunk tank and letting anyone not interested in being told what to be angry about throw things at him. As I said once before, Salon is now basically Thought Catalog for people without thoughts, only knee-jerk reactions.

Link: http://thedailybanter.com/2014/05/salon-takes-aim-at-patton-oswalt-again-is-once-again-publicly-embarrassed/

[mwrguy]

1. His jokes making light of rape and racism are hilarious

not

[SaltyBro]

2. I wish Twitter would be a little more proactive with banning accounts

that spread hatred and racism and sexism like Mr. Oswalt's does. Comedy is not about being hurtful towards other groups, Mr. Oswalt.

[sharp_stick]

3. Say's somebody else

that doesn't read past a headline.

[SaltyBro]

4. I read it

I don't find his shock comedy humorous in any way.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. I think you might be thinking of someone else.

People should read this and then explain what a 'shock comic' he is. His own words not some unsupported flailing.
http://www.pattonoswalt.com/index.cfm?page=spew

[newthinking]

5. I am curious why this is appearing here?

[unrepentant progress]

9. I thought that was explained pretty well in the post deleted by the MIRT for race baiting

[itsrobert]

6. Patton Oswald is pretty funny

Hashkey Activist with their faux outrage are even funnier.

[Fearless]

7. Truth hurts.

[pscot]

10. Callout culture

is a result of Chronic Butthurt Syndrome.