Thursday, November 4, 2021

In Defense Of Dave


Today was the day Business Insinder’s has been waiting for as they dropped their Dave Portnoy hit piece. What I assume is a blue print deployed by companies whenever they need to get their numbers up. I won’t even go into them advertising their pay wall to read the article, the ties to the stock market, and the curious timing of the publishing. What I’m trying to grasp is what was the message being portrayed. 

As far as I can tell, no criminal charges have been brought forward. So what are you trying to convey to the masses? An alternate title could have been “Dave Portnoy Has Sex With Women.” 

There’s a couple of lines in this article that I’d like to address that didn’t sit right with me. 
“He sent her graphic videos of other women he slept with,” I don’t know if this is true or not, but by Business Insider’s own admission, Dave sent a woman videos of what he does in the bedroom. And then we were what? Surprised by what he did in the bedroom? I’ve seen and know what Dave does in the bedroom and I’ve never even wanted to have sex with him. 
“He wasn’t funny at all. He just reminded me of a boring, grumpy old man.” Rude and unnecessary to the point you’re trying to get across. 
The middle of the article was the same old regurgitated stories of Dave and Barstool that surface every three months or so. These have been addressed so many times that it’s pointless for me to even comment on them. 
“Since 2020, Portnoy has issued commands on Twitter for his fans to ‘ATTACK!!!!’ people who criticize him or Barstool, tagging an employee who was hired expressively for the purpose of harassing Portnoy’s enemies.” First of all this just isn’t true. Dave has never asked fans to speak on his behalf. Does he deploy the Vindog, sure. But if you don’t understand that a 60 year old man flushing a poorly cropped head down the toilet is not aggressive pressure or intimidation (harassment), then you’re blind to the fact that you’re holding a comedy site to political standards. 
“While Portnoy was not a perpetrator in her harassment, Weiss believes he has created a culture in which the Stoolies run wild and Portnoy rarely tries to stop them.” Earlier in the article Business Insider  commented on how Barstool reports 54 million monthly unique visitors. To suggest that Dave is somehow responsible for the words and actions of 54 million people is deranged. Out of those 54 million, how many of them do you think “run wild”? Majority of Stoolies are regular every day people who enjoy the content without engaging in Twitter spats. There always was and always will be assholes on the internet. To imply that Dave Portnoy put them there is beyond credulous.
“Perpetually tan and bearded,” Not rude. 
“In the popular r/barstoolsports Reddit threads, Stoolies regularly discuss Portnoy’s conquests.” I mean come on, this is reputable journalism? A high school English teacher wouldn’t accept Reddit as a viable source. 
On a shared direct message to Dave from one of the women that were interviewed, it read, “I wanna be famous so bad I’d be so good at it” Now I’m not judging this DM. I respect the hustle, and applaud this woman’s honesty. Do you girl. But if these are the kind of DMs Dave’s receiving, are we really that shocked they’d rather make a Twitter headline than a police report?
Now I wasn’t there. I’m not saying Dave’s telling the truth. I’m not saying these girls are lying. I don’t know anybody involved. But what’s essentially happening, that I don’t appreciate, is that we are in the midst of a journalistic trial in which the defandant has already been deemed guilty without the right to defend himself. If something egregious did happen, send evidence from both sides into discovery, and have an actual trial where both parties state their case. 
But Business Insider already admitted that the woman they talked to doesn’t consider her interaction as sexual assault. So all we’re doing is spreading gossip about what Dave Portnoy does in the bedroom for a pay day. 

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