CORRECTION: New evidence suggests that the screenshot discussed in this post and elsewhere was not a forgery but the result of a glitch. I offer a correction, and an apology, and a discussion of the implications, here.
So the other day I showed you all in detail how someone at men’s rights hate site A Voice for Men fabricated evidence — in the form of a faked screenshot — in order to cover up an embarrassing mistake on their part. The person responsible for the fabrication appeared to be AVFM’s so-called “managing editor” Dean Esmay.
Well, now it appears that they’re going to triple down on their dishonesty and concoct more screenshots. In a “news roundup” from Esmay today I found this remarkable passage:
And going back to the story with the error I found a new “editorial note” from Esmay:
I can’t wait to see what on earth they’ve come up with this time. I encourage readers to take screenshots of all this in case AVFM decides to do any retroactive ninja editing as part of its plan to pretend it was right all along.
Meanwhile,those of you who have been following this story may be wondering: who is this Joshua Thompson? Well, it appears that AVFM — or at least Dean Esmay — can’t even get the name of the post’s author right. That’s right, AVFM’s MANAGING EDITOR can’t get the name of one of AVFM’S OWN WRITERS RIGHT.
The author was first identified on AVFM as Jason Gregory — and if you look at the bio for Jason Gregory on any of the other articles he’s written for AVFM, like this one, it points to American Idiocracy, the blog where the problematic Facebook post originally ran. (It’s now been replaced, on his blog, anyway, by a completely rewritten version.)
At some point, apparently by accident, AVFM changed the byline of the author to Jason Thompson, who appears to be someone else who wrote something for AVFM a long time ago. And now Dean Esmay is calling him Joshua Thompson.
Or maybe Joshua Thompson is his real name, and Jason Gregory was his pen name, and Esmay has accidentally doxxed his own writer. Who knows?
I suspect we have not yet plumbed the depths of AVFM’s dishonesty –or incompetence.
Also, myself and the fox I heard screaming last night are both David.
We’re all Dave here.
From that thread linked to above:
That. Is. Amazing.
We all must be David because we all have a similar sense of humour.
WHAT PLANET DO THESE PEOPLE RESIDE ON? And what’s this ‘cellar dwelling’ business??
Also I like how David makes his different characters appear at similar times based on where they are in the world, for example there are people I (David) never get to speak to as I’m only online UK day time and the Aussi (Davids) will start going to bed in a few hours.
We’ve entered the matrix guys.
So when we have an arguement in the comments… I mean, even a gentle disagreement amongst ourselves…?
Right, right, say no more. That’s just silly talk. Why would I disagree with myself? Pure foolishness.
Also, y’know, about that doofy sense of humor… Doofy? Is that a word?
Some of the running jokes have taken on a life of their own. Even jokes that don’t actually fit my sense of humor, I’ve taken to passing on.
That’s part of how humor works, actually. Shared contexts, etc.
Or we’re the same person.
(cough)
It’s weird how we (David) all have the same sense of homour, which is suspicious (notice how I (David) use English spellings? it’s all part of the illusion) and yet the fact everyone even remotely involved with mrm talks like Bond villains isn’t suspicious at all. That’s just how intelligent important people speak obvs.
I (Dave) even have time to screw around in Photoshop while also commenting as 2 other people!
http://i39.tinypic.com/2q24g34.jpg
Heh. There’s a Bible joke in here. “My name is
LegionDavid, for we are many!”We (Dave) also have time to write all the blogs that our “commenters” have, naturally.
That *could* be suggesting that most manboobz visitors are posting from their basements (with associated lack of natural light/implication it’s their mom’s basement); but I think this time it’s just a claim that the number of hits the site gets is low and staying that way.
Only those commenters who are David can confirm or deny that claim.
So they’re suggesting that there are more commenters than there are people visiting the site?
The cellar dwelling isn’t really a thing here in the fake UK. I know a few people (male and female) who have lived in parents converted attics but that seems to be a very different thing from the ‘loser neckbeard’ American thing.
How can they be so wrong about literally everything but so righteous at the same time?
Well, I’m not David. I deny it categorically.
@Melody
Jedi hugs if you want them. Hope you have a nice break 🙂
@thekidwiththereplaceablehead
Ow. My fingers just about curled up even thinking about that.
@J
::applauds::
Well, I’m the most David-y David that ever Davided.
@
howard bannisterDavid::Applauds::
Actually I’m Spartacus.
That’s OK. I’m David. And so is my cat.
I’m Batman.
I just thought, when they accuse David (all of us) of quote mining are they referring to his habit of reducing their 50million word screeds to more manageable chunks? (while of course linking to the original etc)
What am I saying. It’s probably just more angry conjecture.
Proof!
I’ve always said there really is no bottom of the barrel these MRAs will not happily dig beyond.
I mean, they always lie about easily verifiable things, this is just more concrete and brazen than usual.
They’re using the classic “No, you!” defense. It’s like catching a child who has gotten into ice cream, is covered in ice cream, and they say, “No, Mom, I didn’t eat the ice cream. You did”. However, a child caught getting into ice cream is much cuter and more endearing. The writers at AVfM are just pathetic.
And as much as they discuss DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender) at Shrinkformen, MRA’s sure are pros at using it themselves. But it’s kind of hard for them to rewrite history on the Internet, where people can take screenshots and google stores things in cache.
Mr Futrelle (see what I did there?),
I’m not a journalist, so don’t know, but from academia, isn’t it standard to not switch a person’s name when talking about them in an article? For example, MRA poster child for stupidity Thomas Martin is making a video. Tommy Martin said it will make money. Tomosaurus Martino declined to say whether female crew would be whores.
Easy: the screenshot isn’t fake, and neither are the search results they claim to have gotten, so David was lying when he said they were lying. You’ll see when they post more totally-not-fake screenshots!
If Leftwingfox gets to be Batman, can I be Hawkgirl?
Carnation, this is a blog, and I think you’re in the wrong topic. I tried to refer to Tom Martin consistently by his last name after the first mention but he is such a familiar character around here I am afraid I slipped up and called him “Tom” a couple of times. Are you going to revoke my blog license?