Healing Butt-Hurt: Theory and Practice

Posted on | June 25, 2012 | 32 Comments

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Today Mrs. Other McCain got the news that we had been turned down on a rental application for what we had hoped would be our new home, which is rather a bitter pill, considering that we now have less than five days to find a new home. Selah.

It has been five weeks today since I published “Never Doubt That God Answers Prayer,” my first post from an Undisclosed Location, and I’ve been Whereabouts Unknown since then. Also, today is the one month anniversary of “Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day,” when this story occupied the top eight threads on Memeorandum.

No guts, no glory, eh?

When you decide to go “all in,” you play the hand you’re dealt. I’m grateful for everyone who has hit the tip jar to assist in this unexpected emergency relocation, and tip-jar hitters will please accept my apologies for failing to send thank-you e-mails. I figured you were contributing to keep me reporting on “The Kimberlin Files,” and so I have kept reporting, rather than taking time to thank each of you individually.

Sunday, unfortunately, I wasted several hours composing a reply to an “Open Letter” posted by Seth Allen. About 2,000 words into my reply, I figured it was a waste of time, abandoned the draft and moved on. But this afternoon, during a phone call with a source, I was grumbling about the storm of infighting and recriminations among bloggers over the Kimberlin saga, an unfortunate development that has been a distraction and an emotional drain for the past several weeks. I’ve written nearly nothing about it, simply because it was fundamentally irrelevant to the important story I’ve been trying to cover.

Not to whine, you understand.

Mandy Nagy, Patrick “Patterico” Frey and others have been coping with these problems far longer than I have. Since October 2010, there has been a nearly incessant (but unseen) wrangling over the Kimberlin story, engendering much bitterness, weariness and demoralization. When I jumped onto this story May 17, I had no inkling of the background, and found myself inexorably drawn into a bunch of tedious personal drama that other people have facing for months.

Here I was, thinking we were trying to cover an important news story. Instead, I’d wandered into the International Championship of Butt-Hurt.

You. Have. Literally. No. Idea.

Regular readers know, of course, that I was recently honored with the Pulitzer Prize for Butt-Hurt Journalism for my three-year investigative series, “Not Good Enough for BlogCon.” That was a sequel, of sorts, to my pioneering work in the field of New Media Butt-Hurt, “Why the Hell Doesn’t Allahpundit Ever Link Me, Huh?”

Yet in the past month, I’ve come to understand that I’m a mere amateur in this field, incapable of withstanding the really serious competition. Let’s just quote Seth’s 1,180-word “Open Letter”:

Mandy Nagy and Patrick Frey have done nothing for me. In fact, I have major gripes against everyone except Aaron and ok Dustin too. But the other four members of Team Breitbart are no good in my eyes and never will be– Patrick, Mandy, Brandon, and Lee. That goes for Ali Akbar too while we’re at it. But he showed up out of nowhere and really has nothing to do with anything other than making “our” side look bad. . . .
I have two Master’s degrees. Mandy Nagy has a degree in Music. Patrick Frey is a public prosecutor and no scholar who without proof has ruined an individual in Ron Brynaert. Lee Stranahan is the ultimate marketing whore. This has all been proven. Brandon Darby, wow, he is as un-American as they get. That dude is psychotic. . . .
Robert, I’ve been studying internet convolution since 2006. My background is Social Theory, an interdisciplinary Sociology including History, Psychology, Philosophy, basically all the liberal arts goodies. I know my stuff. I read a lot of books back in the day. . . . I may not appear as all that, but my academic resumé speaks volumes.
This is the greatest thing I’ve ever accomplished, and I will not let self-promoters steal my destiny.

I hereby surrender the Butt-Hurt Crown to Seth Allen, and suspect that no one would dare challenge his undisputed title henceforth. Yet the weird thing is, I remain entirely sympathetic to Seth.

The dude has done excellent work, with insufficient recognition, and had the courage to go it alone when no one else was paying attention. However, to declare that “self-promoters” are trying to “steal [your] destiny” is the kind of blanket accusations that is best avoided.

To say the least.

Where to begin? When you call Lee Stranahan “the ultimate marketing whore,” Seth, you’re insulting my advanced market-whoring skills.

The entreprenuerial approach to online journalism generally requires that independent operators act as their own P.R./marketing shop. If you do not promote yourself — if you aren’t pimping out your stuff and calling attention to your own unquestionable awesomeness — you’re going to be ignored. Nobody else is going to do this for you.

Let me offer three pieces of helpful advice:

Install Sitemeter — The first step to increasing your traffic is measuring your traffic. Who is linking your blog? Which links generate the most traffic? Which of your posts are most popular? In general, the idea is to do more of what works, but you have no idea what works if you’re not measuring your traffic.
Install Google AdSense — It’s practically an automatic feature on BlogSpot, and is the easy first step toward monetizing your traffic.
Install a PayPal “tip jar” — Don’t think of it as charity. Instead, it’s “reader-supported journalism,” providing an opportunity for readers to show their appreciation and support for your work. After more than four years at this gig, when I invoke the Five Most Important Words in the English Language — “Hit the Freaking Tip Jar!“ — the response is generally gratifying. As I once remarked, people can be divided into two categories: (A) Good People and (B) Worthless Sons of Bitches Who Never Hit a Blogger’s Tip Jar.

Your mileage may vary, of course. If you had a tip-jar button on your site, Seth, I’d gladly hit it and tell others to hit it, even if you never feel the need to apologize for the bad things you said about my friends. Because I know how you feel, and I know sometimes the butt-hurt gets so bad you write things you later regret.

There’s no “un-publish” button on the Internet, eh?

Maybe one day we’ll all get together for beers and laugh about this, perhaps after Neal Rauhauser has been committed to an institution for the criminally insane, and Brett Kimberlin is back in prison where he belongs. And then I’ll tell you about the real scandal:

THE DOUBLE-SECRET AGENDA:
How Tabitha Hale and Allahpundit
Conspired to Exclude Me From BlogCon
(and Also Kinda ‘Steal My Destiny’)

I’m sure the Pulitzer Prize Butt-Hurt Committee can’t wait.

– Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown

Comments

32 Responses to “Healing Butt-Hurt: Theory and Practice”

smitty
June 25th, 2012 @ 6:20 pm

How Tabitha Hale and Allahpundit Conspired to Exclude Me From BlogCon
Vlad Confucius the Impaler say: “Man who parks fundament on stake and whines about butt hurt kinda funny.”
Bob Belvedere
June 25th, 2012 @ 6:21 pm

Enough with the butt-hurt, people.

Keep your eye on the prize: bringing down the thugs on the Left.

‘There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit. ‘

Regarding all this in-fighting on the Right: S.T.F.U.

Besides, ‘Butt Hurt’ is Stacy McCain’s middle name – runs in his family.
robertstacymccain
June 25th, 2012 @ 6:38 pm

Making myself the butt of the joke, so to speak!
CryingWolfeBlog
June 25th, 2012 @ 6:38 pm

Bob-With all due respect, this isn’t “infighting”. Everyone would have to have been on the same side to be fighting internally.
This goes very deep and it goes into directions that some don’t ever want revealed .
Here’s Some Salve For All The Butt Hurt Going Around « That Mr. G Guy's Blog
June 25th, 2012 @ 6:47 pm

[…] can’t believe it. Stacy McCain is giving up his “Butt Hurt” crown to one Seth Allen. Here’s some salve for you […]
DaveO
June 25th, 2012 @ 6:52 pm

Reading Allen’s words, I’m reminded of Custer’s communiques 136 years ago today. He was butt hurt, literally, and dismissive of support as well.
crosspatch
June 25th, 2012 @ 7:01 pm

I’ve had an idea I’ve been thinking about that kind of fits in the context of this posting. You mention the hustling that one must do to attract notice and get traffic and to monetize the work. What I’ve been thinking about is something based on the Tides Foundation model but for blogs. The way it would work is that people would donate to this entity and could earmark their money for particular blogs if they wish or leave it up to the organization to donate or any combination thereof. The individual blogs themselves would not “belong” to the organization so there is really no control over content or anything. This also keeps donors at arm’s length from the blog so the blog doesn’t know who donated the money and this allows the blog the freedom to say what it wants without obligation to a particular source of funding and at the same time keeps the donor at arms’ length from the blog so the donor does collect drama over what the blogger might say.

So lets say I donate $100 to the Foo Foundation and earmark $50 to specific blogs and leave the other $50 up to Foo to donate as they see fit to worthy blogs which might be under the radar but have good content and are worth supporting. At the end of the quarter, I bundle up all the earmarked donations and donations directed by Foo and make a lump sum donation to each blog.

There isn’t any co-branding going on with this except maybe various blogs might run a medallion on their page pimping the organization.

That’s half the equation. There would be a second organization for a different purpose to perform a more active role in promotion and marketing but that is beyond the scope of this particular idea and could come later. The Foo Foundation would be a non-profit designed to support “reader supported citizen journalism”.
Shawny Lee
June 25th, 2012 @ 7:03 pm

You could be a great spokesperson for the RNC, to which Bob’s wise advice also would seem to apply.
We’ve done half of the lefts work for them. They don’t have to divide, just conquer.
Kryon77
June 25th, 2012 @ 7:41 pm

Seth’s academic achievements don’t seem superlative to me (but maybe I’m wrong), but I know it could be worse. At least he doesn’t have a Doctorate in Education.
MrMichael
June 25th, 2012 @ 7:42 pm

“Instead, I’d wandered into the International Championship of Butt-Hurt.You. Have. Literally. No. Idea.”

So dish. If not you, pass it along to some newish blogger who needs the hate mail. Inside info is why I come to the blogs…
DaveO
June 25th, 2012 @ 7:43 pm

Why contribute if you can’t control the content?

Likewise with the Tides Foundation, and entities like the Holy Land Foundation – folks think they’re contributing for one purpose, but once they’ve contributed money, they no longer control what is done with it.

Further, there would have to be a decision maker (either one or more persons) who decides who gets money to blog, and who doesn’t.

The Free Market works, and it permits RSM to run his blog his way.
Shawny Lee
June 25th, 2012 @ 7:43 pm

I have donated to this blog and others individually but I would not donate to a conservative blogger organization as not all are worthy of a quarterly lump sum donation or even recognition and there is still much work to be done on vetting or catagorizing even the good blogger sites we have. Just my humble opinion of course, but you have to do the kind of hard work and detailed, ballsy, butt-hurt reporting that McCain, Malkin and others do in order to earn my tips.
ThomasD
June 25th, 2012 @ 7:49 pm

“Lee Stranahan is the ultimate marketing whore.”

Paging Dr. Fuckingobvious.

Apologies Stacy, but Lee is waaay ahead of you, particularly when you account for the ‘degree of difficulty’ aspect inherent in his volte face.

Nat Hentoff he aint.
BigFurHat
June 25th, 2012 @ 7:58 pm

Go to Twitter ASAP, Robert.
Aaron Worthing was just SWATted.
Mike Rogers
June 25th, 2012 @ 8:06 pm

And while the bloggers bickered, Aaron got SWATted.
Seems like having his first amendment rights restored was just too much for the Kimberlin Kiddies to take!
richard mcenroe
June 25th, 2012 @ 8:13 pm

One thing you learn being a Republican and conservative in CA is that PJ O’Rourke is right: the world is full of pissants looking for a their own pot to piss in above all else.

Here in CA we just watched the state party send a candidate into our district for no other reason than to wreck the candidacy of one of our own, to punish our presumption in running someone where the state party didn’t see fit to endorse a candidate. So when you get Howard Berman 0r Brad Sherman back in office next fall, remember to thank a Sacramento Republican.

Another GOP candidate actually endorsed Berman in writing, and THEN ran in the same district, to further dilute any chance we had of running a candidate in the fall.

At this point I’m about ready to join any third party that doesn’t OPENLY call for wearing jackboots and building your own Panzer in the barn.

Such a relief to see that’s not a unique situation. Reminds me of the scene in Fred Pohl’s bio “The Way the Future Was” where the early generation of SF fans used to sit around the club meetings accusing each other of being Trotskyites,
Adjoran
June 25th, 2012 @ 8:29 pm

Patterico also reported the SWATting of Aaron Walker – he’s okay, the cops had automatic rifles but didn’t aim them at him and apparently realized it was a hoax call right away. It isn’t clear whether or not Aaron had advised his local PD of the possibility.

When does this end? It doesn’t take a genius to note that everyone on the SWAT list had made either Kimberlin or Rauhauser mad at some point shortly before it happened to them.
jsn2
June 25th, 2012 @ 8:45 pm

He’s a pain in the ass.
crosspatch
June 25th, 2012 @ 9:12 pm

I am not getting your angle. This would allow you to contribute ONLY to the blogs that you wanted to. You would not be required to leave any for general distribution. Just that the blogs you are donating to would not know the donation is coming from you nor could anyone trace your donation to any specific blog.
Shawny Lee
June 25th, 2012 @ 11:16 pm

Not an angle, just my personal opinion. I feel the same about donations or tips I give for any reason. It’s not about control. It’s about showing appreciation and support directly. I also think there exists a risk when the recipient loses visability of where their money is coming from, whether marketing strategies have been effective and with which audience, or whether they are in fact receiving all donations tagged for them.
Stealing Seth Allen’s Destiny
June 25th, 2012 @ 11:53 pm

[…] I have a deep, dark confession to make: ever since I heard of Seth Allen and his two Master's degrees, I've been out to steal his destiny. […]
flicka47
June 26th, 2012 @ 12:53 am

Wow! I know there’s a lot of egos involved here, but maybe all of these folks crying they’re not getting enough attention need to take a big chill pill.

Everybody seems to think that they get to be John Hancock…

Yeah, maybe Seth needs a little more mention for his part in all this, but he’s also more than a little over the edge, sanity-wise. (I ‘ve read numerous of his comments over at Pattericos. he’s not quite all there, believe me!)

Anyway, to the point, this isn’t about any one blogger, it’s about what the Kimberlin thugs are willing to do to silence folks they don’t like.

Please keep pointing out how petty these folks are being Stacy. Just maybe they’ll see the light.(I’ll try and add a little more to your $49 Mil when I get a chance!!)

ps. is the sitemeter popup yours, or a SM mistake?
crosspatch
June 26th, 2012 @ 1:16 am

Well, lets say you wanted to support someone but didn’t want to worry about getting SWATted. And maybe this isn’t about you specifically, maybe someone else feels that way.

The way the left uses it is say the Heinz Foundation wants to drop a cool million on Code Pink but doesn’t want the donation connected to the Heinz Foundation which is run by John Kerry’s wife. They give the money to Tides who makes the donation in turn.

But lets say there’s someone who runs in lefty circles who would like to donate to some citizen journalist’s blog but would be inconvenient to have their name associated with that donation. This provides a way that they could remain at arm’s length.
Roxeanne de Luca
June 26th, 2012 @ 1:21 am

Yeah, I was wondering that. Patrick Frey went to Cornell then UT-Austin (a top-notch law school, just a hair below G-Town) for law school. No one’s dummy, clearly.
Shawny Lee
June 26th, 2012 @ 1:36 am

Well, let’s just say that devising a means to work-around a terrorist threat which should not exist, rather than exposing and prosecuting it to hell and back is not a good reason to employ highly suspect methods which should also be exposed to keep everyone honest.
Enoch_Root
June 26th, 2012 @ 8:07 am

Stacey – this is sort of cruel to say, but the sort of “woe is me” stuff from full-grown men has always struck me as less-than-attractive. Several years ago I had a “run-in” with perhaps the most self-important cry-baby I’ve ever had the displeasure to try to assist. He, a well-known blogger I had no personal connection with other than through Dan at (then) Powip. In the wake of that interaction, wherein he appeared to expect me to “stat-f**k” him for being a quasi well known personality of Bloggersdom, I just shook my head wondering where his manhood had stolen away to. Let me give all of the Butt-Hurters a little clue: working hard is a given… working hard at one’s “passion” is a mixed-blessing… but it is a choice nonetheless. Being an exceptional (in this case) writer is a gift. But working hard at one’s passion and being an exceptional writer are not the only determining factors. Why do I have to explain that good fortune, dumb luck, cosmic coincidence, Providence also play a significant part? Unfortunately, ppl still believe that they are masters of their own destiny and that by sheer will they can launch themselves into the atmosphere of star-f88kerdom? Have you listened to the radio recently? Haven’t you realized the best bands are recording records in basements… releasing material worthy of accolades but wholly ignored? Being butt-hurt is a lower response. A prideful response. And, while I am a fan, don’t expect much sympathy from me vis a vis the butt-hurt rankings. We’ve all of us scars. But a man… needs to take his licks as if he’s still got balls between his legs. So, just stop.
Zilla of the Resistance
June 26th, 2012 @ 8:24 am

ps. is the sitemeter popup yours, or a SM mistake?

I’ve been getting the same thing.
Zilla of the Resistance
June 26th, 2012 @ 8:24 am

ps. is the sitemeter popup yours, or a SM mistake?

I’ve been getting the same thing.
jwallin
June 26th, 2012 @ 8:49 am

When someone starts talking about their “destiny” I start running.
This SWATting Insanity Must Stop: A Quick Action Guide « The Prudence Paine Papers
June 26th, 2012 @ 9:56 am

[…] bloggers, then these reporters are truly gonna hit the snooze button when the bloggers are merely being run out of their house or having their family creepily […]
SPQR9
June 26th, 2012 @ 10:33 pm

Seth Allen is clearly a victim of the Brett Kimberlin crime family … but it is also clear that he has stability issues of his own.

Its more sad than anything else to watch.
Good News: Butt-Hurt Is Not Fatal : The Other McCain
July 4th, 2012 @ 1:14 am

[…] AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION You may remember that on June 25 I published a post called “Healing Butt-Hurt: Theory and Practice,” in which I mentioned “the storm of infighting and recriminations among bloggers over […]