An Oatmeal beatdown

I must admit I'm not a frequent viewer of the The Oatmeal but I got this tweeted to me this morning. I'm not sure I've seen a bigger literary beat down in my lifetime. Matt Inman just shredded Jack Stuef.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/jack_stuef

Huh.. so that's what a severe beatdown looks like...

That is awesome! It is obvious that the Jack Stuef piece was researched and written with an agenda in mind.

Inman didn't even need to resort to Simpson's Comic Book Guy references.

I'm glad for the background.

Matt had an open house here last week that was right after the rape joke dramaz, and while I reserved immediate judgment because I've been a fan for years I still had mixed feelings about supporting his stuff right then. Vote with your capitalist dollars and all that.

Now I can feel good about having my new poster up. He drew a clover on it in silver sharpie!

Hooray!

TLDR version at Popehat.

On the one hand, man, that Jack Stuef guy is a jerk, and I guess he had it coming. Still, it seems a little childish for Inman to do him that way.

Also, the keyboard rape joke - the joke was kinda in bad taste, and Inman's response to the backlash was worse than the joke itself. I know the guy is human and feels the need to defend himself, but I feel like he'd benefit from moderating his responses to critics just a little bit (even when he's clearly in the right).

While Inman's response to the backlash was something he doubtless regrets, I think it's understandable. Who amongst us hasn't done something stupid, and then become defensive when someone calls us on it? I sure as hell have.

With respect to the Beatdown, it was well-done, and well-deserved. I'm not a fan of litigation wherever it can be avoided, and I do believe that shaming has a vital role in correcting people's behaviour in certain circumstances. The reason people recoil so forcefully from the idea of being publicly shamed is the reason it is so effective. Ideally, positive reinforcement would be how correction would be done, but sometimes those who sneer at basic common courtesies (such as not making public false accusations) need to be publicly corrected.

Like all artists, he was bound to do something that pissed people off... the only difference here and with previous strips of his that cross into the contraversy area is that he pissed off more people than normal this time with a relatively upsetting subject that really no one except prepubescent boys thinks is particularly funny.

Could his reaction have been better? Yar. Has he manned up to that? Ehhhhh... kind of. But, this article that trashed him was just that, trash. Good on him for shame. People don't like to lose, that's what makes it such a powerful teacher.

It's a terribly uncivil way to have an argument, but damn, it sure is funny.

Never let it be said that The Oatmeal takes the high road.

Malor wrote:

Never let it be said that The Oatmeal takes the high road.

I dunno if you read the article he's shredding: This _was_ the high ground from that. And I'm not sure ignoring it or a polite correction would have done any good. This is more memorable than the original smear article, and to avoid just reinforcing it, that's really the best way to handle it.

That said, yeah, he had a stupid reaction to the criticism. With how much hate mail most creatives get, I don't begrudge him the stupid response. People respond stupidly under duress.

Some free association because I'm bored…

the blog in question wrote:

I did it for a few months to escape my 9-5 office job, and to this day it still stains my career as an "SEO spammer."

You see that wall by the road there? I built that wall. I built walls all over town. But do they call me "Seamus the wall builder?" No.

You know that bridge by the square? I built that bridge, and two more on the road out of town. But do they call me "Seamus the bridge builder?" No.

But you f*ck one goat…

It was interesting, but he didn't refute all the points. And some of his rebuttals were a bit hand wavy.

1Dgaf wrote:

It was interesting, but he didn't refute all the points. And some of his rebuttals were a bit hand wavy.

I think his intention was only to refute the points that were untrue, which it seems he did. And then some.

gore wrote:

TLDR version at Popehat.

On the one hand, man, that Jack Stuef guy is a jerk, and I guess he had it coming. Still, it seems a little childish for Inman to do him that way.

Also, the keyboard rape joke - the joke was kinda in bad taste, and Inman's response to the backlash was worse than the joke itself. I know the guy is human and feels the need to defend himself, but I feel like he'd benefit from moderating his responses to critics just a little bit (even when he's clearly in the right).

Inman really came unhinged on this one. He used a nuke to destroy a bug.

The story was poorly reported and edited. But there wasn't anything in there remotely libelous.

Enix wrote:

Inman really came unhinged on this one. He used a nuke to destroy a bug.

The story was poorly reported and edited. But there wasn't anything in there remotely libelous.

I think Matt had to use the nuke, because even though the story was badly written and edited, it was still getting tons of traffic.

I'm glad I don't regularly follow the guy, because everything I've read in that entire post, from defending himself for making a rape joke to pointing out this guy's errors, would cause me to just dislike him. He really is a child, and he comes off as that sort of snarky "LOOKIT HOW SMRT ME AM" that permeates the culture of the Internet these days.

He could have been the bigger man and simply pointed out the inaccuracy of that article with just the facts. It's obvious that the guy didn't do his research and doesn't know what he's really talking about. But Inman is throwing ad hominem attacks at the guy in retaliation. He's still whining and stomping his feet.

More so, God dammit, webcomic drama...ugh. Tastes like high school.

I will still always wonder why we can make a joke about unicorns knocking a man out and stealing his kidney and find it funny, or a llama stabbing a man to death funny because he happens to be wearing a hat, and yet anything involving the word rape is just going too far. See also: Dickwolves controversy. But I imagine that is more P&C territory, and from the sounds of it Inman's use of the joke wasn't really funny anyway.

ccesarano wrote:

I will still always wonder why we can make a joke about unicorns knocking a man out and stealing his kidney and find it funny, or a llama stabbing a man to death funny because he happens to be wearing a hat, and yet anything involving the word rape is just going too far. See also: Dickwolves controversy. But I imagine that is more P&C territory, and from the sounds of it Inman's use of the joke wasn't really funny anyway.

Yes, yes it is. If you have to put that kind of a disclaimer on it, you should probably just not say it outside of P&C.