Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the takesgiving dept
This week, That One Guy took both top spots on the insightful side, winning first place with a response to Sherwin-Williams very stupidly firing the employee who made paint mixing cool on TikTok:
'... Wait, where did that sales spike go?'
'This man is making videos of our products and driving a ton of positive attention to them, what should we do?'
'Fire him, how dare he think of stealing our product for his personal gain!'
'He's not only paying for all of what he's using he's donating it to charity afterwards, providing double the PR gain for us.'
'Did you just suggest that I was wrong about something?
'Nope, I'll get right on firing him for his impertinence.'
In second place, it's his response to the court denying immunity to cops who beat and tased an unresisting man to death:
The rule stands: 'Only call the cops if you want someone dead'
That this even needed to be said shows how utterly corrupt and horrifying the US legal system is. There is video evidence of half a dozen thugs with badges either beating, tasing and ultimately murdering someone suffering a psychotic break or sitting back and watching while that went on and it had to be explicitly ruled that no, that does not fall under acceptable police behavior which means that yes, they can be tried and potentially face consequences for their actions.
Good on the judge for not falling for the legal abomination that is qualified immunity, but the fact that a case this damning even needed a circuit judge to rule on it shows just how utterly vile the law has become and how insanely privileged and protected police are from even the chance of consequences for their actions. With a corpse to point to, testimony of the store owner and video evidence of what took place this should have been the shortest murder trial in history, rather than something that higher courts needed to weigh in on and that still needs to go to court.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got two more comments from that first post, including a followup from That One Guy. But first, commenter jonr arrived with an important update:
Yay for Florida Paints
And there's an update: In a video just posted to his account, Anthony says he has now been hired by the company Florida Paints and will be moving to Florida to help make their paint cool. So there's at least one paint company that gets it.
...Which prompted this rejoinder from our dominant insightful winner of the week:
'First our sales tank, now theirs is spiking, what's going on?'
Oh that is just too good, not only did Sherwin-Williams fire someone who was providing great PR for their brand but they ended up driving him directly into a competitor's arms in the process, leaving nothing but bad PR for them as the new employer gets all of the good.
Whatever exec made the decision to fire him really needs to be shown the door post-haste, as while it may be too late to recover from this fumble with 'leadership' like that they're going to 'lead' the company straight into bankruptcy.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is Beefcake with another comment on that same post, summing up the situation thusly:
Summary
Paint saint complaint restraint attaint.
Update: Aquaint
In second place, it's an anonymous comment about Parler that may have been intended as a joke but was more likely just so-stupid-you-have-to-laugh — garnering it plenty of reports and a whole lot of funny votes:
Parler is a free speech capitalist platform providing a good safe space using moderation, based off the FCC and the SCOTUS
Facebook and Twitter, on the other hand, are Marxist platforms, providing bad safe space using communist censorship.
For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got a pair of other comments on that post. First up, it's a observer with a direct response to that winning comment, pointing out one of the most obvious ways that it's very dumb:
Yes, the multi-billion dollar private corporations are /checks notes/ Marxists. Do you even look up the words you use before typing them?
Next, it's TheResidentSkeptic with a response to one particular piece of phrasing in our post, in which we suggested Parler is learning the same lessons that Twitter has learned:
Wanna Bet?
"... Parler is learning ..."
Methinks you give them too much credit...
That's all for this week, folks!
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rewarding a troll post
Could this be the first time a troll post got awarded with a best-of-the-week mention?
For what it's worth, I didn't report this but voted it as funny. I even explicitly mentioned in a reply that I thought that it was a joke. We may never know! 🤷🏼♂️
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And?
Parler
Learning something?
NOT until we see them in court.
Then I want to see them explain Their reality.
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Re: rewarding a troll post
Some people try to make a joke only to end up being the joke.
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Re: Re: rewarding a troll post
You know, sometimes they aren't even trying...
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Know what's worst about the "funniest, most insightful" weekly?
I clearly see that some people voted for me. And at the end of the race, their votes don't count. But nobody even bothers to ask me whether I'll be conceding gracefully and leave my keyboard at the end of the week.
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Parler is learning?
Simpson's did it!, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKg2ZzPKl2M
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Re: Know what's worst about the "funniest, most insightful&
If you concede gracefully and leave, then popcorn farmers will be going chapter 11 all over the country.
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Re: rewarding a troll post
It was a joke, based off an actual comment suggesting nationalizing Marxist corporations (from somewhere else).
Still, the part about moderation based of the FCC and SCOTUS that is absolutely not censorship that exists on other platforms is taken straight out of Parler's site.
I would have used a sarcasm tag, but the last time I used it was at the end of 2015 and I forgot to close it...
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Re: Re: rewarding a troll post
And you made Poe's Law shine like a beacon.
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Re: Know what's worst about the "funniest, most insightful" week
You should personally sue, but someone mangy dogs will claim you don't have standing.
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Re: Re: Know what's worst about the "funniest, most insightful"
Well, it's no accident. The lady of the house requested that I remove the music stands and microphone stands from the living room because she was intending to entertain guests.
Clearly a conspirancy to make me lose standing.
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That's nothing...
My Poe post convinced the spam filter I'm Hamilton.
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Re: Re: Re: rewarding a troll post
shine like a thousand suns is more like it.
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Re: Parler is learning?
And yet there's no Sega Genesis Chalmers (for our European friends, there's no Sega Mega Drive Chalmers either because Springfield is in the United States).
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Re: Re: Re: Re: rewarding a troll post
Beacons made from a thousand suns are our smallest model!
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Re: Re: Parler is learning?
Also, in Japan, Super Nintendo Chalmers would be スーパーファミコンチャーマーズ (Super Famicom Chalmers).
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: rewarding a troll post
Touché.
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Re: Re: Re: Parler is learning?
My bad, the Japanese is actually 「スーパーファミコンチャルマーズ」
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Re: rewarding a troll post
I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one troll post get Funniest of the Week before but I'm not going to go back through the archives to find it.
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Re: Re: Know what's worst about the "funniest, most insight
Given that corn is just about the most subsidized industry in the country, I wouldn't worry about them too much.
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Re: Re: Re: rewarding a troll post
Indeed. Just because they put a lot of time into their incessant ravings doesn't mean they put any effort into them.
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Re: Parler is learning?
Young man, you need to do some serious boning.
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Re: Know what's worst about the "funniest, most insightful" week
I’m assuming you’re joking, but in case you aren’t, at the end of the year, people who’ve had lots of comments voted insightful or funny and those who received lots of insightful/funny votes overall get pointed out.
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Re: Re: rewarding a troll post
Yeah, I thought it was a joke. When I saw the “good safe space” vs. “bad safe space” thing, I thought that no one would be that lacking in self-awareness. I can’t blame others for thinking it was real given some of the actual comments that were intended to be taken seriously.
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Re: Re: Know what's worst about the "funniest, most insightful"
Yes, it's a reference to recent events in the news involving somebody refusing to accept the results of a vote.
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Re: Re: Know what's worst about the "funniest, most insightful"
Well, clearly my sense of humor may suffice for an occasional "funniest" every few months but it clearly does not hit the nerve reliably enough to make it to any summary list.
There recently was sort of a press conference (with Trump "taking questions") after some event involving the military that was shown in excerpts (particularly the "you know I will" bit when asked five times in a row whether Trump would leave the White House on Jan 20th if the electoral college voted him out) but which Fox News had the grace to air in full (no idea whether this is still out).
It's worth listening to in full if you don't mind wasting half an hour of your life you will not get back.
At any rate, it's another example of my understanding just not being mainstream: this is the stuff that riles up a substantial portion of the U.S. populace while it mainly triggers "where is the 25th Amendment when we really, really need it?" with me.
One- or two-minute excerpts just don't do it justice. The breadth of topics this "question-and-answer" session graces cannot be appreciated in excerpts.
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