PCWorld Insults Readers with Gratuitous Swipe Lumping Tea Partiers with Axe Murderers
Update (12:50 p.m. EDT; see screencap below page break) | Tynan tweets: "ok, I apologize. to the axe murderers. you tea party guys need to develop a sense of humor. but I doubt it will happen."
You'd expect it from Newsweek or the New York Times, but PC World?
For some reason, Dan Tynan of ITWorld.com and PCWorld.com just couldn't resist working in a gratuitous swipe at Tea Party conservatives in an August 11 article entitled "Facebook's Phonebook Fiasco."
Here's the offending comment in context (emphasis mine; h/t email tipster Glenn Petrucci):
Who are all these people, and what are their phone numbers doing on my Facebook contacts page? That’s the question I am now asking.
I have 987 Facebook friends, some of whom I actually know. A handful of them are on my Android phone. Most, if not all, of the contacts inside my mobile phone are now listed in Facebook – as well as numbers for things like the pizza joint down the street, which doesn’t have a Facebook page.
You know how it goes on Facebook – somebody you don’t know asks to be your friend, you look over their friends list, decide they probably aren’t an axe murderer or a Tea Party member, and you say Yes, because Facebook is a fairly low risk, low maintenance connection. And if they prove to be truly annoying you can always block or defriend them later.
Tynan describes himself as "very liberal" on his Facebook page, so perhaps it's not surprising that he hacked up that snark in his initial rough draft. It's just unfortunate that the professional writer and editor in him failed to exercise restraint before he clicked publish.
It's hardly a smart business move to insult a large section of technophiles who read your publication that happen to be Tea Party conservatives.
Photo of Tynan accessed from his bio page at tynanwood.com.
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Comments
is PCWorld liberal media? I'm
Submitted by Bull Moose Prog... on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:03am.
is PCWorld liberal media? I'm just not sure a liberal writer from PC World should get the free publicity from Newsbusters. Do not want to make the stupid article more read, it should be allowed to suffer in ignominy.
Ugh
Submitted by compguytracy on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 2:56pm.
I am a geek, Associates Degree in IT from an acredited college, not from a home study course like the assbag. fuck off, for one. facebook is for teenagers and being a it expert, i have about 75-80%of the virus' i see are from some uninformed kiddie getting infected on assbook, what a waste of an ip address, for the guys at pc world, an ip address is an individual address given to a computer to distinguish it from other computers and to route traffic to that address accordingly. Second, PC world is now a schill for any advertiser willing to whore itself out to your crappy wanna be consumer reports.
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?" Orwell, 1984
Ceteris paribus
compguytracy......PLEASE! SHOW SOME RESPECT for
Submitted by Rush Fan on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 4:05pm.
this site by not using profane language. NewsBusters is read by many young adults. Let's set an example for them.
Thank you,
RF
OK, now that is funny - only
Submitted by amyshulk on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:04am.
OK, now that is funny - only hard liners will equate the two, while thinking people who haven't made up their mind yet will find it jarring.
Ronald Reagan
or use duct tape
Submitted by DWoSD on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 7:24pm.
or use duct tape
I've subscribed to PCWorld RSS feeds for years
Submitted by lsudolemite on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:14am.
Trust me, this isn't the first bit of lib tripe they've thrown out there. They routinely advocate for government intervention in the broadband industry and net neutrality, just to name a couple off the top of my head. Though this is probably the most overt shot I've seen in one of their stories.
Yeah, but it's one thing to
Submitted by Ken Shepherd on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:32am.
Yeah, but it's one thing to advocate for liberal policies and another to insult conservatives. Insulting a large portion of your market share is not smart, especially in a time when print magazines are dying and there are numerous online outlets to go to for PC and tech news.
Very true.
Submitted by lsudolemite on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 12:18pm.
Very true.
Tea Party - just gettin' started!
Submitted by Curly on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:15am.
I'm a tea partier! How can you tell? I'm for polluting the environment, bad drinking water, fouling the oceans, yada yada yada! MORONS at PC World and every other place do not understand we have a SPENDING problem!!!!! Hell cannot burn hot enough for these folks!
Hell cannot burn hot enough for these folks!
Submitted by MaximusBraveheart on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 3:12pm.
LOL, yeah getting sick and tired of this BS treatment. Funny thing is, they are killing people with unemployment and big spending Daddy government. How many divorces & suicides has that caused quite literally! How much drug addiction and fatherless children has the PROGRESSIVE "war on poverty actually CAUSED!
Yeah, having and promoting morals is just SO horrible for a society...
-- Maximusbraveheart -- Is TRUTH knowable? Moral Relativism is the abandonment of Truth. Truth is knowable. Truth conforms to Reality. Reality is observable by evidence & witness in this day & from history. Relativism is Sesame Street play land.
Hey Poppa!
Submitted by panzerakc on Sat, 08/13/2011 - 1:56am.
You forgot racist, homophobic terrorist who knows nothing about science, clinging to your gun and Bible.
It just goes to show
Submitted by c5then on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:16am.
How ubiquitous liberal "journalists" have become and how they have no inhibitions about letting their personal ideologies tinge their supposedly professional work.
Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
Lumped Together NOT
Submitted by THBarb on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:23am.
I don't think he is lumping them together. He's contrasting opposites.
He lists the Tea Party because they are public and popular. As a Tea Party member ( and I think most of my Facebook friends are Tea Party Supporters) I am saddened that he sees those that support limited government and the Constitution as an extreme. However, he is entitled to his opinion.
Now why does he choose Axe Murderers as the opposite? Perhaps people have associated him with them before and he is trying to remove himself from that group.
I dropped subscription
Submitted by dmacleo on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:32am.
cause of snarkiness like this.
One thing it might be helpful
Submitted by Reaver on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:39am.
One thing it might be helpful to know about PC World, their offices are in San Francisco. Like a lot of “very liberal” people who live in a very liberal bubble, he can’t imagine that a significant part of the magazine’s readership might actually be tea party members or tea party supporters. Their just a crazy fringe group, right? I don’t know anybody who agrees with them.
City by the Bay
Submitted by Hausmaus on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 6:06pm.
San Fransisco is America's rectum, and if you don't believe me go take a vacation there for a week, and you'll come back home with an unforgiving fecal smell that stays permanently on your skin for months.
Facebook "Friending" is For Foolish Twits
Submitted by Motormouth KOS on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:43am.
This douche bucket's quote...
"I have 987 Facebook friends, some of whom I actually know. A handful of them are on my Android phone. Most, if not all, of the contacts inside my mobile phone are now listed in Facebook – as well as numbers for things like the pizza joint down the street, which doesn’t have a Facebook page...."
provides the ultimate indictment.
987 "facebook friends?
Translation: No real life friends.
The Obamination... A crisis leading to a catastrophe..(please donate to MRC)
Egg-zzzzactly!!!
Submitted by Diesel on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 2:47pm.
Egg-zzzzactly!!!
People still read computer magazines?
Submitted by MoYo on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:44am.
Like the dial-up AOL of 1995, computer magazines like PCWorld were popular in the pre-dot-com bust days, but like the AOL of 2011, are computer magazines even relevant?
Now that *IS* stupid.
Submitted by Quasi-socialist on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 12:10pm.
I hope it goes viral. I think anybody who supports the Tea Party Movement should "un-friend" this guy right now.
How funny that you have to worry about your "friends" being axe-murderers. In the old days, we'd ask "How well do you know your friend?" these days, it's clear that in this virtual world--we probably don't.
It would have been stupid to un-friend him because he describes himself as "very liberal", it's different when he insults normal people or yourself and suggests that he would like to be rid of you for your political leanings.
I used to read PCWorld but
Submitted by Free Stinker on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 12:24pm.
I used to read PCWorld but quickly stopped. They weren't as bad as Weekly World News, but they were pretty close.
/// Sarah Palin Fan since July 11, 2007 /// خال
Never ceases to amaze me..
Submitted by ThePickle on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 12:34pm.
It never ceases to amaze me how otherwise intelligent business people will insult and turn off huge portions of their potential customers based solely on their political leanings.
As if somehow they disdain to take your money because you happen to disagree with them politically.
In fact I am beginning to believe that until shareholders, en mass, start kicking up a fuss and demanding that these idiots that are effecting their bottom, line through thoughtless and mindless garbage like this, be removed from their positions of power, this type of garbage will only increase.
Wowser
Submitted by locomotivebreath1901 on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 1:26pm.
This Dan Tynan is another oh-so tolerant and compassionate Liberal stooge who did not get the 'new civility memo.'
These WTF guys employed by Obama really need to up their game.
C'mon, get real
Submitted by TheHistorian on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 1:29pm.
This is an idiotic article. This PC World putz is just a liberal trying to be a comedian. He just forgot to make a cheap shot against the Huffington post or Moulitas. Probaby an Apple fan also.
Dennis Prager
That's okay, Dan. I usually
Submitted by Ed Gregory on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 1:37pm.
That's okay, Dan. I usually mention liberals and pedophiles in the same analogy -- both are grotesque creatures who make life worse for those they come in contact with. And if you don't think that's funny, a liberal like you needs to develop a sense of humor.
I work with people like him, and they're just as unfunny. This from his bio:
Tynan is an officer of Tynanwood Inc., whose properties include TynanWood Omnimedia (TWO) and the TynanWood Institute for Technology (TWIT). He spends the rest of his time on Facebook, where his avatar is much younger and better looking than he is.
I took "spends the rest of his time on Facebook" to mean about 18 hours a day chronically masturbating.
Re: Update
Submitted by bkeyser on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 1:37pm.
Sensitive little sissy, isn't he?
Yep. A sissy and stupid - now
Submitted by amyshulk on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 2:54pm.
Yep. A sissy and stupid - now the controversy will draw attention to it, and those who read it and didn't catch the conflation will notice and might wonder "what if I'm next?"
Ronald Reagan
People read PC World?
Submitted by frank14 on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 2:02pm.
Who knew?
Tea Party comment
Submitted by TerryWest on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 2:22pm.
His comment further demonstrates the ignorance of the over emotional liberal when it comes to business.
It seems to be a reoccurring left wing theme to chop one's own foot off in the prcoess of hacking away at a percieved threat or imaginary target.
He wasn't trying to be funny but allowed his personal fears, political bias and peer pressure to undermine his own livelihood as well as others at PC World who depend on it.
I bet he lumps Mac users into that, too.
Submitted by SickofLibs on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 2:55pm.
The rag should be named Plague World... half of the articles are devoted to how to keep the virus known as Windows one half-step ahead of all the malware, spyware, trojans and gaping security holes.
PCWorld
Submitted by pockets64 on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 3:17pm.
Back when my PC XT was still new, I enjoyed PCWorld and Computer Shopper (now, this is when it was larger than the Yellow Pages) and all that.
But now that I'm no longer building my own PCs and have moved on to bigger systems to drive, I find that the articles in most of the rags to be like anti-info. Not only do they not inform on the subject matter, but I feel like some of what I have learned over the years has been yanked from my skull.
Seeing that this guy only has an associates (an on-line one at that) and probably has never had to spend a 36-hour day making a problem go from corporate disaster to working-as-usual or kept a shop running on 5 9's helps me understand why I never learn anything from those magazines.
BTW, compguytracy: your comments were as out of line as a technical magazine taking political pot shots. Clean it up so the rest of us don't get painted by the same scandalous brush you are earning.
Arrogant and Stupid
Submitted by rammingspeed on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 3:42pm.
Tynan is a sickening scumbag who has just outed himself. He'll suffer for this, from rejection by people in both the business community and consumers. He'll pretend he doesn't care, because he's arrogant and, along these lines at least, truly stupid. Ef him.
Of course if a Conservative
Submitted by Liberallies on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 3:52pm.
Of course if a Conservative techy would have written, "...decide they probably aren’t an axe murderer or an Obama supporter, and you say Yes..." The Conservative would have been fired for being a racist and anyone that said that Obama supporters need to get a sense of humor would also have been fired.
The hypocrisy and sheer hate by Liberals of the Tea Party is pathetic!
PC World has readers?
Submitted by Saint Zero on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 4:03pm.
PC World has readers? Amazing.
Just the other one. I left.
Submitted by Bob T on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 4:40pm.
Just the other one. I left.
Bob T
Submitted by 26CX on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 4:47pm.
That was a good one!
Axe Murderers n PCW
Submitted by Bob T on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 4:38pm.
Having recently received a notice from PCW, I am so glad I had trouble determining if I wanted to continue taking something that is of little benefit. I just returned the statement with the following in a note....................Tynan tweets: "ok, I apologize. to the axe murderers. you tea party guys need to develop a sense of humor. but I doubt it will happen."
I am sorry but you no longer want my business as though I am not a teapartier I do believe in the constitution and agree with them as far as they go.
love it when a plan comes together.
Uh, it's called **PC** World
Submitted by CO2Maker on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 4:42pm.
Duh.
If the left thinks that we
Submitted by rbosque on Sat, 08/13/2011 - 2:15am.
If the left thinks that we are acting in the worst interest of our country when it comes to the debt, then why does George Washington say the same thing?
“No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable. Cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible: avoiding occasions of expence [and] avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear.” –George Washington, December 3, 1793