Britt McHenry gets nasty with tow company employee, gets suspended

[Vandalman]

Maybe someone with awesome powers could fix her name in the thread title.

 

[BroodsSexton]

Well, my take is this: Britt McHenry is likely an asshole.  But that's not, in and of itself, very remarkable.  There are tons of assholes, and we all need to deal with them.  That the asshole in question is both ever-so-slightly a public figure, and also super hot, makes it mildly interesting.
 
What's remarkable here is the sheer degree to which towing companies operate in the realm of the corrupt and, likely, illegal.  Many of us have been towed before.  The one time it happened to me, I deserved it, but luckily had to deal with a city tow lot that was on the up-and-up.  The fees were outrageous, but there's a deterrent effect there - I get it.  But I've seen stories and videos of tow-company people conspiring with the service staff at suburban businesses to basically either boot or tow peoples' cars even when there's no signage that would suggest this was a remote possibility.  Even when the car in question belongs to a customer doing business at the lot owner's store.  Even during business hours.  No violation has been committed, but they boot or tow it anyway.  They have your car, they're not letting it go unless you pay them tribute, and after the fact, you're not going to care enough to sue or go after them.  It's the perfect setup for a protection racket, no different than 3rd-world minor officials taking bribes to facilitate their ordinary duties, and it's just as infuriating.
 
Britt McHenry is a poor choice to rail against this flaming injustice, obviously, but that's nevertheless the cause that gets me all hot and riled up.  Not her tits, fine as they may be.  To the extent that she can bring light to and shame this company - and may have a personal reputational reason to do so, or even just out of spite - I say, god bless.

 
Are you David Brooks?  I just realized you sound a lot like him.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

 
A) Person acts like a rip-roaring asshole;
B) Different person puts behavior in A on the internet.
 
B doesn't excuse A, even if it's asshole behavior in its own right.   And if it takes the threat of people finding out what an asshole you are to make you worried about being an asshole: look out, you're an asshole.

 
This is one of the great arguments in the privacy debate: Do people need the space to be an asshole in relative obscurity so as to grow as people and not have a single instance of being an asshole come to define them because of the ubiquity of the internet?
 
If you're a good person 99 percent of the time, but in a moment of weakness or frustration, become an asshole, is it fair that the rest of the world be introduced to you as an asshole? 
 
Further, if the threat of constant surveillance makes you less likely to be an asshole, what else does it make you less likely to be? Silly? Intimate? Vulnerable? 
 
With cameras looming everywhere, all of the rough edges of human behavior begin to be sanded off. Personally, I'd rather absorb a few assholes and keep the other rough edges than have assholism wiped off the face of the earth by public shaming and get a bunch of automatons along with it. 

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

Are you David Brooks?  I just realized you sound a lot like him.

 
At least he has an editor.

 

[Spelunker]

 
This is one of the great arguments in the privacy debate: Do people need the space to be an asshole in relative obscurity so as to grow as people and not have a single instance of being an asshole come to define them because of the ubiquity of the internet?
 
If you're a good person 99 percent of the time, but in a moment of weakness or frustration, become an asshole, is it fair that the rest of the world be introduced to you as an asshole? 
 
Further, if the threat of constant surveillance makes you less likely to be an asshole, what else does it make you less likely to be? Silly? Intimate? Vulnerable? 
 
With cameras looming everywhere, all of the rough edges of human behavior begin to be sanded off. Personally, I'd rather absorb a few assholes and keep the other rough edges than have assholism wiped off the face of the earth by public shaming and get a bunch of automatons along with it. 

 
There's a book that just came out, So You've Been Publicly Shamed that examines the virtual lynch mob effect that is an unintended consequence of all-encompassing transparency. Pull quote, from the NY Times article about it:
 

 
 
Ronson’s new book, “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed,” digs into a strange phenomenon of the participatory ­Internet. From time to time, it seems as if every user of social media rises up as one to ­denounce, shame and remove an apparently deserving victim. The first few times Ronson witnessed this, he was intrigued — even exhilarated. “When we deployed shame, we were utilizing an immensely powerful tool,” he writes of his initial reaction: “The silenced were ­getting a voice. It was like the democratization of justice.” Or was it? His view turned gradually darker.

 
NPR had a good piece on it a few weeks ago. I've been meaning to read it. 

 

[Leather]

Well, the problem is that publicizing an injustice can lead to a disproportionate response. In cases where the original injustice is so great and awareness can help fix it (like the Stubenville rape cases), that's not a problem. However in cases such as this where the ultimate harm was bruised feelings and being made to feel small, the line is a lot fuzzier.

McHenry was an asshole, but posting the incident online is likewise an asshole thing to do because it's the equivalent of responding to getting slapped by stabbing someone in the shoulder. My only point was that the latter doesn't negate the original asshole behavior, it just makes two assholes whereas before there was but one.

 

[kenneycb]

Yeah, because the ESPN personality is going to be posting nudes to Instagram. I went to illegal hacking because that's where they'd be coming from.
 
When did you decide that caping up for leering shitbags was a good way to go?

When I stopped reading after bikini and missed the less part.

Though plenty people post nudes to Twitter I guess? And by people I mean pornstars and they're not real people. Because I'm a misogynist. Syd told me so. So you know it's true.

 

[kenneycb]

I empathize with this woman not because she's hot, but because I am also a bit of a sociopath that will target someone's superficial weaknesses and turn them into an insult. Not over cheese on a burger, but probably something like getting my car out of impound if I feel I am being demeaned. It's not a trait I am proud of. I have gone there, it doesn't feel great afterward.
 
Now that the company has said they don't want her fired they were just trying to promote "awareness", I am more firmly on her side. I think they realized there's not a whole lot to gain from this monetarily because aside from people who are required to take the high road (media members), the general reaction to this has been to quickly descend into a shared hatred of towing companies and how they run their businesses.

Meh, this is one of my favorite parts about sports. You generally know nothing about the person and look for superficial means to make fun of someone to get in their head. Pretty good feeling when you know you won that battle and got them off their game. Less good feeling when you are the one getting thrown off your game. Best feeling is when they get thrown off by you not getting thrown off.

 

[luckiestman]

 
There's a book that just came out, So You've Been Publicly Shamed that examines the virtual lynch mob effect that is an unintended consequence of all-encompassing transparency. Pull quote, from the NY Times article about it:
 
 
NPR had a good piece on it a few weeks ago. I've been meaning to read it. 

The author was on WTF with Maron and it was a good listen. 
 
http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_594_-_britt_daniel_jon_ronson

 

[Montana Fan]

This site has become pretty much UFB.  Bleedred's comment should have been skipped as inane but instead the Righteous Brothers must attack him in an effort to show how great they are.  This section of the site is just short of Sinaville when it comes to the daily "make myself feel superior" trashing of whatever inane/dumb sentence Peter King, CHB or whomever wrote the previous evening.

 

[Leather]

This site has become pretty much UFB.  Bleedred's comment should have been skipped as inane but instead the Righteous Brothers must attack him in an effort to show how great they are.  This section of the site is just short of Sinaville when it comes to the daily "make myself feel superior" trashing of whatever inane/dumb sentence Peter King, CHB or whomever wrote the previous evening.

 
So you're saying that you've lost that loving feeling for the misogynist jokes that used to be the soul and inspiration of this site?

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

This site has become pretty much UFB.  Bleedred's comment should have been skipped as inane but instead the Righteous Brothers must attack him in an effort to show how great they are.  This section of the site is just short of Sinaville when it comes to the daily "make myself feel superior" trashing of whatever inane/dumb sentence Peter King, CHB or whomever wrote the previous evening.

 
No way. It's fun acting like a supercilious cunt to everyone.
 
There are people on this site who have the same overriding concerns about misogyny, but realize that picking a fight at every single opportunity does more harm than good.
 
Than there are the cunts.

 

[OCST]

 
No way. It's fun acting like a supercilious cunt to everyone.
 
There are people on this site who have the same overriding concerns about misogyny, but realize that picking a fight at every single opportunity does more harm than good.
 
Than there are the cunts.

 
sarcasm detector. . .  Recalibrating. . .

 

[SydneySox]

This site has become pretty much UFB.  Bleedred's comment should have been skipped as inane but instead the Righteous Brothers must attack him in an effort to show how great they are.  This section of the site is just short of Sinaville when it comes to the daily "make myself feel superior" trashing of whatever inane/dumb sentence Peter King, CHB or whomever wrote the previous evening.

 
Untrue.
 
We've succesfully gotten to the point that inane racism, sexism or miscellaneousism is being challenged. That's a very good thing.
 
That you think challenging these sorts of attitudes is actually people 'trying to show how great they are' says a lot about your belief systems. It's also a straight up failure of argumentative logic. If you don't think Bleedred did anything wrong or that people should ignore what you describe as inane, then argue the point instead of the people who do.

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

 
sarcasm detector. . .  Recalibrating. . .

Don't recalibrate. You got it.

 

[SydneySox]

 
sarcasm detector. . .  Recalibrating. . .

 
Kenny has accepted he is not well liked on this site. 
 
What he hasn't accepted is that it's his fault and not, as MontanaFan might argue, the failings of others.
 
He's in his 'acting out' stage at the moment where he shows how much he does not care by talking about how much he doesn't care. If he was an emoji, it would be that of a person on the internet wearing sunglasses indoors smoking a clove cigarette.

 

[SydneySox]

Don't recalibrate. You got it.

 

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

 
Kenny has accepted he is not well liked on this site. 
 
What he hasn't accepted is that it's his fault and not, as MontanaFan might argue, the failings of others.
 
He's in his 'acting out' stage at the moment where he shows how much he does not care by talking about how much he doesn't care. If he was an emoji, it would be that of a person on the internet wearing sunglasses indoors smoking a clove cigarette.

Swing and a miss.

You're my favorite internet bully. Can you go back to the Curt Schilling thread and bully people that disagree with you about internet bullying again? That was super rad!

Thankfully you're here to enlighten us in your free time between your movie marathons, comic book binges, and video game benders. Keep doing gods work. He (or she!) thanks you for it.

 

[SydneySox]

I mean, I doubt I'm your favourite 'bully'. Many more people than me call you out, daily. I would have thought one of those posters would have been your idol first seeing as they take you apart so often. Then again, I appreciate if you're saying you're drawn to quality over quantity.
 
When you get to the next phase of your existensialist crisis you should re-examine this thread and your contributions to it; your attempts at subversise satire are immediately undercut only half a dozen posts later when, getting the attention you were after, you immediately fall back to 'stop bullying me!'

 

[Bleedred]

 
 
Nobody at ESPN is publicizing nudes. That's what that mouth-breathing creepy fuck was going at, not ooooo bikini pictures ooooo. You know it, I know it, he definitely knows it because he thinks that the culture here is such that he can say that and get virtual fistbumps for it. So why are you pretending otherwise?
 
When writing it I should have realized that expounding on one aspect of the wrongness of that post would draw out the a segment of SoSH that thinks bro-culture misogyny is cool--and you are right the fuck on time, I compliment your punctuality if not your ability to not fundamentally suck at being a people--but this cape-up is weak sauce.

Wow....I had no idea that my throw-away post caused such a brouhaha and branded me a mysoginist.  Now I'm a mouth-breathing creepy fuck going for.....____________?  I'm not even sure what you are intimating, but for clarity's sake, let me just say that I assumed that there were public images of her (much like jenny middlebrooks) that would be posted and ogled.  If that makes me mouth-breathing creepy fuck, then guilty as charged I guess.  What I was surely not going for was some sort of advocacy of hacking into private materials for public posting and shaming.  If that's what you took from the post, then you got it wrong.
 
Carry on.

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

I mean, I doubt I'm your favourite 'bully'. Many more people than me call you out, daily. I would have thought one of those posters would have been your idol first seeing as they take you apart so often. Then again, I appreciate if you're saying you're drawn to quality over quantity.
 
When you get to the next phase of your existensialist crisis you should re-examine this thread and your contributions to it; your attempts at subversise satire are immediately undercut only half a dozen posts later when, getting the attention you were after, you immediately fall back to 'stop bullying me!'

You're tedious and boring.

When you're not tedious and boring you're aggresive and actively submarining anyone with a different opinion. You're doing a wonderful job creating a cozy little echo chamber for yourself. I know quite a few people who won't engage with you because your tact is to attack the poster and scream louder then anyone else.

Well, I guess your movie reviews are OK.

 

[SydneySox]

I thought I was your favourite? You have low standards for favourite.

 

[SydneySox]

 You're not my favourite anything btw, in case you're trying to curry some sort of reciprocal thing.

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

 You're not my favourite anything btw, in case you're trying to curry some sort of reciprocal thing.

I've already documented a healthy portion of your key interests. I'm ok with that.

 

[SydneySox]

Self acceptance of your own self worth - you're on the way. Just know - it is your fault.

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

Well, if you're just going to post unfunny shit, I guess this has run its course. Catch you in another thread where you try to talk over everyone else!

 

[SydneySox]

Well, if you're just going to post unfunny shit, I guess this has run its course. Catch you in another thread where you try to talk over everyone else!

 
I can still see you in this thread you liar.
 
Also if posting unfunny shit was a barrier etc etc.

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

 
I can still see you in this thread you liar.

Bullying and stalking? I don't think the women's rights movement wants you leading their charge.

 

[SydneySox]

Bullying and stalking? I don't think the women's rights movement wants you leading their charge.

 
To get back to the point - what you think about who should be in charge of women's rights is irrelevant. One day you will understand that. Maybe.
 
I doubt it, based on everything you have ever written.

 

[SydneySox]

 Edit: .... that I have read. Which is as little as possible. 

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

 
To get back to the point - what you think about who should be in charge of women's rights is irrelevant. One day you will understand that. Maybe.
 
I doubt it, based on everything you have ever written.

Oh. Because I'm a man! Got it!

You suck. Threads yours, you fucking donk.

 

[Kull]

 
To get back to the point - what you think about who should be in charge of women's rights is irrelevant. One day you will understand that. Maybe.
 
I doubt it, based on everything you have ever written.

 
Wow, theatre of the absurd. This is what it looks like when a caricature of a caricature calls somebody else a caricature.

 

[SydneySox]

Oh. Because I'm a man! Got it!

You suck. Threads yours, you fucking donk.

 
 
 
You haven't 'got it'. Not because you're 'a man'.
 
It's because it's not your call to make; not theoretical and not as thread police.
 
That's the second time you've also said you're abandoning the thread. Do we get to be lucky and see if we can avoid a third time?

 

[JohntheBaptist]

Swing and a miss.

You're my favorite internet bully. Can you go back to the Curt Schilling thread and bully people that disagree with you about internet bullying again? That was super rad!

Thankfully you're here to enlighten us in your free time between your movie marathons, comic book binges, and video game benders. Keep doing gods work. He (or she!) thanks you for it.

 
I hear over at SoSh Football Central everyone involved wears leather jackets and smokes cigarettes out in public like they don't care who knows it. So this insult, posted by someone with over 6,000 posts on an internet baseball message board, isn't as blindingly pathetic as it might first seem.

 

[Judge Mental13]

So wait, is Kenny the tow yard clerk and Sydney is McHenry or do I have it backwards

 

[johnmd20]

So wait, is Kenny the tow yard clerk and Sydney is McHenry or do I have it backwards

 
Sydney is both the clerk and McHenry. Kenny is the camera.

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

 
I hear over at SoSh Football Central everyone involved wears leather jackets and smokes cigarettes out in public like they don't care who knows it. So this insult, posted by someone with over 6,000 posts on an internet baseball message board, isn't as blindingly pathetic as it might first seem.

I wouldn't know. I spent a few weeks doing some menial things over there to help them get off the ground. I have little to do with their success. Maybe the leather jackets play a larger part? I dunno.

Glad you chimed in, though! Where's Blacken? Blacken completes the trifecta. Big money, big money, big money...

 

[SydneySox]

At least you got Kull to back you up.

Good old Kull.

 

[ForKeeps]

How can the people writing think pieces about this thing live with themselves.

 

[Leather]

You know, I kind of liked clove cigarettes for the first 5 puffs.

 

[glennhoffmania]

You know, I kind of liked clove cigarettes for the first 5 puffs.

 
In high school I found them somewhat interesting.  Now they make me feel a tad sick.
 
This thread took a serious and unexpected detour.

 

[johnmd20]

 
In high school I found them somewhat interesting.  Now they make me feel a tad sick.
 
This thread took a serious and unexpected detour.

 
If was neither serious nor unexpected.

 

[Kull]

 
Sydney is both the clerk and McHenry. Kenny is the camera.

 
Well done!

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

At least you got Kull to back you up.

Good old Kull.

 
You know, I got some very sagely wisdom from a generally obnoxious source:
 
 

 
Kenny has accepted he is not well liked on this site. 
 
What he hasn't accepted is that it's his fault and not, as MontanaFan might argue, the failings of others.
 
He's in his 'acting out' stage at the moment where he shows how much he does not care by talking about how much he doesn't care. If he was an emoji, it would be that of a person on the internet wearing sunglasses indoors smoking a clove cigarette.

 
Oh, there it is.
 
I didn't get anyone to "back me up". If people want to respond to your bullshit, it's on you, not me.
 
Despite you wanting to treat an internet message board like a street fight, there is no "backing each other up". Jesus, you take your online persona very, very seriously. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to recognize insecurity when it poured off my screen, but I surprised myself.

 

[The Napkin]

 
That's the second time you've also said you're abandoning the thread. Do we get to be lucky and see if we can avoid a third time?

Nope

 

[The Napkin]

 
I wasn't sure if I'd be able to recognize insecurity when it poured off my screen, but I surprised myself.

 
That's not a computer screen. It's a mirror.

 

[DJnVa]

 You're not my favourite anything btw, in case you're trying to curry some sort of reciprocal thing.

 
 

 

 

[Kenny F'ing Powers]

 
That's not a computer screen. It's a mirror.

 
It can be both.
 
In fact, on a website where people jostle for internet superiority on a daily basis, it's almost always both.

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

At least you got Kull to back you up.

Good old Kull.

 
I thought that Kull the Conquerer was a poor man's Conan the Barbarian. They even looked the same!

 

[smastroyin]

Kull didn't even have a glaive.