Eye on Winer

…and, this time, Chris Pirillo has got Dave’s back.

Let’s recap what happened, in short form. Jason Calacanis was giving a talk. To an audience. Of which Dave was a part. Dave (and some others) didn’t like the presentation. Dave (but nobody else) decided to interrupt the presentation and heckle.

It’s not Dave’s fault that the presentation sucked (if it did). It’s not Dave’s fault (at least entirely) that he was unhappy. But we’re not talking about those things, we’re talking about Dave’s actions and any sane, rational person realizes that Dave’s outburst is absolutely nobody’s fault but Dave’s. He, and he alone, is responsible for his actions. His outburst was rude and selfish. There are, quite literally, a dozen other ways that Dave could’ve handled his displeasure but he chose the one that made him feel the best at that exact moment without regard for anyone else. Not surprising. Also not surprising is how, even though he claims to have “apologized”, he still maintains that it wasn’t his fault. Let’s take a look…

I think [Chris Pirillo] should have spoken sooner, it would have saved me a lot of grief, for sure.

As would not interrupting the presentation, but that would require self-restraint and respect for others.

I’ve been told by lots of people that they like it when these blowups happen, they find it entertaining. I understand, but I don’t like being part of these things.

It’s actually pretty easy to not be a part of them, and it usually involves not going out of one’s way to be an asshole.

The rest of Dave’s post is basically one big excuse for his deplorable behavior… so let’s skip that and take a look at Chris’s post:

I do, however, wish to assert that Jason’s accuracy in respect to what happened at Gnomedex last year is a bit misdirected.

His “accuracy” is “misdirected?” Raise your hand if you even know what this means. It’s nonsensical. “Accuracy” is or is not. It’s not a vector, starting at one place and running towards another.

At Gnomedex 2007, Dave was merely a messenger for a percentage of the crowd, and while he may have delivered this message differently than anybody else would have… I don’t think he did anything inherently wrong.

He could have been that messenger in a dozen other ways (or not at all) and nobody would’ve cared, but the way he chose to do it, by interrupting a speaker, was rude, and considering there were so many other, considerate ways to handle the situation was, in deed, “inherently wrong.” (Whatever that means these days)

He’s passionate, he cares about you (and a LOT of people), and he attempted to bring the session back to where the audience’s expectations were meeting the message that was being delivered on-stage.

He cares about himself and himself alone. If he had been interested in the presentation and had been reading the twitter stream, there’s no way on earth he’d have done what he did, and if someone else voiced the will of the crowd, he’d have come down on hard as them as he could. He attempted to bring the session back to his own expectations.

I suggested then, as I suggest now, that Twitter amplified and exacerbated the emotions of the crowd – making it easier for one negative comment to spring into two to spring into four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on.

This might all be true, but it matters none at all. No matter how “amplified” the emotions were, everyone is in control of his or her own actions, and Dave’s response to his emotions was to be a jerk to someone else and in a very public setting.

It’s easy to look at this situation, and look at Calacanis, and say “Yeah, well, he’s a jerk himself quite a bit so he deserves it/can handle it/doesn’t matter.” But that ignores the point: two wrongs don’t make a right, and Dave was the one who decided to go on the offensive.

The first person (name?) to say something that resonated with a good portion of the crowd wasn’t to blame for what a portion of the crowd was thinking.

Also true, but nobody is trying to blame Dave for what others were thinking, they’re blaming him for what he did.

It wasn’t Dave’s fault – it just wasn’t. Expectations were off, and if anybody’s to blame in this thing – it’s me, and nobody else. I didn’t set expectations properly, and for that I apologize.

Chris might be to blame for the presentation going over poorly, but as much as he’s trying to divert blame away from Dave, he’s never going to be able to take responsibility for Dave’s autonomous decision to act out like a petulant child.

Nobody’s trying to “shoot the messenger,” Chris, they’re trying to shoot the asshole.

Tags: Gnomedex

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 9:09 am and is filed under Dave. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.