My Thoughts on Dave
February 1st, 2008 by EyeOnWinerSome recent comments by, and interactions with, Dave have solidified my views on the blogosphere’s biggest curmudgeon. While it’s been pretty well established by the laypeople that read this blog that Dave is almost certainly a certifiable narcissist, that description really didn’t explain a certain vibe that I get from him.
Last weekend, Dave twittered something that struck a cord:
honestly i’m more interested if it’s safe for men to be masculine
It took me a few days to really digest why this comment stuck out so much for me. Today I went to check a comment thread that I was having with Dave on a post of his, only to find that my most recent comment (one that he had no hope of rebutting, really) had been deleted. When I saw that, I finally found the word I had been looking for:
Dave Winer is a coward.
That’s why he shouts people down. That’s why he strictly maintains his echo chambers. That’s why he threatens people. That’s why he hides behind blogs and crowds.
The reason Dave’s comment about men being masculine struck me is that he’s not really masculine at all.
He has no chutzpah, and he tries to cover that up by viciously wielding as much power as he can muster.
February 1st, 2008 at 2:41 pm
How masculine is it to worry, before doing something, whether you’re in an environment where it’s “safe for men to be masculine”? Cowboy up, dude.
Winer behaves cowardly when he deletes dissenting views and either quits or shuts down online communities where he can’t control the conversation. He didn’t even give Reddit a chance to succeed as a user-moderated community of Scripting News readers.
I don’t know that cowardice explains his particular brand of assholery better than narcissistic personality disorder, but it’s true that he turns turtle in a fight.
February 1st, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Bravo Eye….that’s about as telling an insight into Winer’s passive-aggressive mood swings. And you’re right: He is a bully. I doubt he’d be as abusive if he were to meet the objects of his ire in the flesh.
February 1st, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Coward doesn’t work for me.
My take is that Dave is extremely sensitive to any think remotely critical. He is primed to over react,
Of course, after he does react he needs to make that behavior ok for himself and anyone that witnessed it which leads to “re-invention” of the facts to justify the behavior.
The guy wants to be a social animal but he won’t suffer “fools” and he tends to dismiss anyone that he doesn’t feel the need to extend courtesy to… and that list must be quite long.
You can be so sensitive that you simply come off as an asshole… but there’s a whole complex set of coping mechanisms i place that simply drive people away . He can exhaust a well meaning friend with unpredictable mood swings over small conflicts.
Only a Robert Scoble… self-deprecating, professional climber and social hanger on (tho’ Scoble is working his assets to an extreme: affability) can maintain a long term relationship with Dave.
Steve Gillmore also passes the muster but I suspect that Steve’s intellect and ability to defend himself AND stand by Dave in all extremes of political attack make them bunker-mates.
When Steve edited XML world Dave was probably the ONLY XML driver that Steve thought was straight-forward and using XML to make someone life better… both true.
Anyway. Dave is sensitive. My brother had a very similar nature. Very talented but essentially flawed human who never bonded and died at a young age… lonely, horny and not too often laid. (Of course that gender identity issue didn’t help things either).
Why do I blog anonymously… because it allows me to tell more than I would ever consider if you could tie my words to my kids. They appreciate the thought.
February 1st, 2008 at 5:05 pm
“I doubt he’d be as abusive if he were to meet the objects of his ire in the flesh.”
We have proof of that already. Skip down to “oh, you’re Bill Kearney. my god” in this IRC transcript of Winer’s keynote at OSCOM five or six years ago. Winer gets a tough question from Kearney and collapses into Jell-O on stage, claiming falsely that Kearney sent him a death threat and resorting to the plea to the crowd that he should be left alone because he’s recovering from heart surgery.
February 1st, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Hey I just found something really interesting.
http://tweetscan.com/
You can search all messages on Twitter. Search on “winer” and look at the hundreds of people saying horrible things about him. And the sycophants are there too. Maybe dave ought to look at what the wider world says about him, not just his sycophants.