Portnoy, complaints.

[Michael_ Gee]

No surprise Portnoy is a creep.

His twitter defenders are an interesting group. Some lively threads today.

Of particular interest to me is how many of them think any content behind a paywall is suspect.

So they're cheap ****s as well as slimeballs. Good to know.

 

[DanielSimpsonDay]

So they're cheap ****s as well as slimeballs. Good to know.

they're waiting to subscribe the dips

 

[Webster]

There is something just so odd to be about the vehement defenders on social media of “famous” people regardless of what they are accused of. There is nothing which certain Barstool supporters like more than saying vile things about anyone who would dare attack Portnoy and his lackeys.

 

[Hot and Rickety]

Defector coverage: https://defector.com/women-say-bars...oy-subjected-them-to-violent-humiliating-sex/

Kicker:

Even taken at face value, Portnoy’s denials and explanations don’t paint a very flattering picture. The most charitable image of him that one can come away with is one in which he is a 44-year-old man who regularly invites women recently out of high school into his home in order to have rough sex with them while recording them without explicit permission.

“I’m scared now,” Portnoy said. “I’m scared now because they’re asking for more. They’re asking the internet, ‘Tell us more bad stories about Dave Portnoy.'”

If you have any stories you’d like to tell about Dave Portnoy, we can be reached at [email protected].​

Ain’t gonna end well for him. Hopefully.

I share your hope that it won't end well for him, but I can't say I'm optimistic. Deadspin/Defector has been trying to take him down for, what, 10 years now (I'm going to guess there are more than a few people there who are absolutely livid that Insider got this story and not them, because that place likes a vendetta more than it likes journalism). The best it has been able to get is the awful **** that Portnoy has said publicly, and anyone with a Twitter account can see that he's vile. If anything, all the negative coverage around that goon just seems to make him more popular among the mouth-breathers who read that ****.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: What would be the smoking gun when it comes to Dave Portnoy, who is a known ****bag? Sadly, I'm not sure the Insider story -- as repellent as its details are -- is it.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

I share your hope that it won't end well for him, but I can't say I'm optimistic. Deadspin/Defector has been trying to take him down for, what, 10 years now (I'm going to guess there are more than a few people there who are absolutely livid that Insider got this story and not them, because that place likes a vendetta more than it likes journalism). The best it has been able to get is the awful **** that Portnoy has said publicly, and anyone with a Twitter account can see that he's vile. If anything, all the negative coverage around that goon just seems to make him more popular among the mouth-breathers who read that ****.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: What would be the smoking gun when it comes to Dave Portnoy, who is a known ****bag? Sadly, I'm not sure the Insider story -- as repellent as its details are -- is it.

The more one tries to enter the world of the really big money, the more "respectable," or at least not loathsome, one has to be. Penn National Gaming probably has a significant operation dedicated to getting more women to gambling on their platforms. This division has had a tough couple of days. I have no idea what Portnoy's deal with them is, but I have to assume it has the standard "if you really really **** up we can dump your ass" clause.

 

[Azrael]

So they're cheap ****s as well as slimeballs. Good to know.

Well, that for sure - but we've also taught a generation of news consumers to believe all content anywhere should be free, and not to trust anything from paywalled outfits like the NY Times or the WSJ.

Or any subscription-driven business model.

If you read some of these Portnoy fans - most of whom are young white male adults and deeply, proudly ignorant - you see nothing ahead for this country but Trumps, cruel and stupid.

Heartbreaking.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Well, that for sure - but we've also taught a generation of news consumers to believe all content anywhere should be free, and not to trust anything from paywalled outfits like the NY Times or the WSJ.

Or any subscription-driven business model.

If you read some of these Portnoy fans - most of whom are young white male adults and deeply, proudly ignorant - you see nothing ahead for this country but Trumps, cruel and stupid.

Heartbreaking.

These guys have always been around. They wind up being the old guys who call midday sports talk radio from the bar after their 5th VO and soda.

 

[Azrael]

These guys have always been around. They wind up being the old guys who call midday sports talk radio from the bar after their 5th VO and soda.

Historically, I'd have agreed with that.

Post-Trump, however, I picture a future for us all in which government is run on the same lines as an episode of Jackass.

 

[wicked]

I find it hard that Penn National, which is deep in the gambling business and knows a bad character when it sees one, was shocked… SHOCKED! by this news.

I admire Portnoy in the sense that he started a free, subpar newspaper filled with his screeds and turned it into a massive entity with a cult of plebes who would die for him. But he still thinks he’s 26. 44 is not the new 26, as much as I wish it were.

 

[Azrael]

The competition weighs in. Honest.

https://defector.com/barstool-sports-employees-decide-the-paychecks-really-are-worth-this/

 

[garrow]

We have a "Glenny Balls" rhapsodizing about "Stool Presidente." This is the world Emerson and Thoreau hoped for us.

 

[Octave]

He's on the run and that's good enough for me.

But it is like Wonka's sad tacit understanding that all the bad kids will go back to being naughty little ****s. Call it what u like, but don't call ours a nation of laws.

 

[dixiehack]

Yes, but Portnoy seems to fancy himself an indispensable cog in the bro-take machine he has built. He’s really just a personality and they hatch new ones in America every day. He can and will be disposed of like a blown light bulb as soon as the numbers don’t pencil out.

 

[Octave]

bro-take machine

I am trying to find an analog for this, from my wastrel youth. Pauly Shore? I don't know.

Rogan and McAfee I can understand. They rolled up wrestling and martial arts into their act, which probably doubled the audience.

Some think that's shrewd, I see it like putting a round squishy worm on a hook and throwing it in the water.

 

[wicked]

Not everyone can get nibbles, though. There is, dare I say, some skill to it.

I don't find McAfee all that offensive, just another idiot kicker. I also don't listen to his show, so YMMV.

 

[User 149557]

McAfee was kinda refreshing when his show was local in Indy. But that wore off real quick.

A.J. Hawk has the personality of a door stop.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

I am trying to find an analog for this, from my wastrel youth. Pauly Shore? I don't know.

Rogan and McAfee I can understand. They rolled up wrestling and martial arts into their act, which probably doubled the audience.

Some think that's shrewd, I see it like putting a round squishy worm on a hook and throwing it in the water.

Jim Rome was the pioneer of this in the 1990s.

 

[Azrael]

The Portnoy Playbook

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/dave-portnoy-barstool-sports.html?

 

[Michael_ Gee]

"Culture war(s)" has become very lazy journalistic shorthand for "The desire/need for some white people to be total assholes without consequences."

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Oh, another lengthy explainer of Barstool’s ethos. Just what the world needs.