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Anaheim Ducks Gameday: Let's Revisit Flyover States

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Stars @ Ducks, and Twitter responds to Jer's last article.

By Jer Jer Jer
88 comments / new
Shameful. Photo credit
Shameful. Photo credit
Chris Graythen

When the Ducks last played the Dallas Stars on Monday, I didn't even bother mentioning the game being played. That worked out rather well for Anaheim, so I figured I'd do the same this time around. Let's talk about flyover states again. Texas isn't exactly a flyover state, but it's certainly an awful place. That similarity is close enough for me.

If you missed my last flyover state article, you missed some fun. I'll wait here while you catch up.

That article was received extremely well, with overwhelming praise. However, if you happened to be following me on Twitter this past Sunday, you might have noticed someone who didn't appreciate the article.

I'm going to apologize in advance for the length of this article, as I need to dumb it way down and make the same point over and over again for one particular reader to understand. You'll see why as you read on.

Now, I'm sorry to insult your intelligence here, because I know you're smart enough to realize what that article was about. But let me spell it out: I was poking fun at people who get upset over the phrase "flyover states." The backlash to the phrase was brought to my attention by a comic which made fun of homophobes. Homophobic people in the Midwest suck just as bad as homophobic people everywhere else (they just live in shittier states), but my article had nothing to do with homophobia.

Steve Ardo, however, failed to grasp this. Steve, or @shroudie on Twitter, was a little miffed that I quoted a friend of his in the article, from a tweet in which his friend threatens physical violence towards anyone who uses the phrase "flyover states." Mr. Ardo insists that, because his friend is bisexual, he shouldn't have been included in my article.

Right, I know, it's a nonsense argument. What does his friend not being straight have to do with him living in a flyover state? Nothing, obviously, and BOC certainly wouldn't make fun of someone's sexuality. But Steve's reading comprehension failed him, and Steve insisted we were implying that everyone in the Midwest was a bigot, even well after it was pointed out that this wasn't what the article was saying, repeatedly. Both by Meg via the official BOC account, and myself on my personal account.

Too outraged (or perhaps simply too dumb) to actually read the article, Steve took a piece of it out of context, where I explain that what brought my attention to the outrage over the phrase was a comic that implied the Midwest has a lot of bigots (because, you know, it does). I also noted that it it was funny that many of those replying directly to the comic were more upset about the phrase "flyover states" than they were about the claim that they were bigots. Keep in mind, this was directly in reference to the people replying to the comic. Switching back to the concept of flyover states, I then went on to quote people from Twitter who were complaining about the phrase "flyover states." Some of these mentioned the comic, many of them did not. It didn't matter why they were complaining about the phrase, the article was simply pointing out the idiotic things they were saying about the phrase.

This is where it gets tricky. Steve Ardo, being unfamiliar with the concept of multiple ideas within one piece of writing, took the article to be an attack on bigots in flyover states and believes we were calling his friend a bigot. No one else but him (and, as he tells us with a heightened sense of urgency, his friend, he promises) took the article this way. Out of all the the thousands of people reading our award-winning fact-based website, one person (and his friend, of course), took it this way. But because two people didn't know how to read it, Steve's new argument became, essentially, "it should have been written differently so that I could understand it." I'm not kidding, he blamed me for his inability to read.

Imagine a world in which writers are forced to publish only what the stupidest among their readers could understand. I don't want to live in that world.

To prove just how idiotic this whole exchange was, here's some of the more hilarious tweets that Mr. Ardo sent our way. You can take a look at my timeline for some of my replies, but reading me tell him over and over again that he doesn't know what he's talking about and trying to guide him in the right direction isn't nearly as funny as reading his outraged tweets, in which he becomes increasingly angry and belligerent, all because he failed to comprehend a very simple article. Also keep in mind that these are merely the best of. The guy was relentless, which only made him come across as even more belligerent and ignorant as time went by...

We didn't.

See, here it seems like he actually did get it, we were shaming morons saying dumb things. But then he loses it again...

Nope.

We never implied it was a response to The Oatmeal comic of course. We implied that his outrage over an inoffensive phrase made him an idiot. And it does.

The "point" was to shame the shameful. So... it was directly related to the point.

But, you know... maybe you shouldn't take an article making fun of states from a comedic website so seriously. Oh, what do I know.

The "consequences" are Steve Ardo calling you a meanie.

Quoting a person saying something dumb doesn't count as "generalizing" them.

Yeah, it was a really good article.

So after a few seemingly endless strings of tweets coming from this internet tough guy threatening us with consequences, I had to step away from Twitter for a few hours. Like a normal adult, I can't spend my whole weekend tied to a social network. Hours had passed, and Steve Ardo was still going at it. When I acknowledged him once again, he was very upset that I wasn't giving him and his rage my undivided attention...

At this point, he blocked me from responding. However, in gathering these tweets, I see he went on for about another hour trying to convince his followers, who I imagine couldn't have possibly cared enough to have been paying attention to begin with, that him not being able to read is not his fault. Yeah, people sure are dumb.

Anyway, It appears that Mr. Ardo does not have much faith in his argument that all of my articles should be dumbed-down so that he can read them. I told him repeatedly that he should contact my editor if he really felt that I crossed a line, but I asked my editor, Mr. Scibetta, if he received any complaints, and he assured me that he had seen nothing by wild acclamation for my hard work.

That's good news for me, as Mr. Scibetta doesn't take criticism well. Unlucky for you fools, I get to keep my spot here for at least another week or so.

Next Game

Dallas Stars
@ Anaheim Ducks

Wednesday, Apr 3, 2013, 7:00 PM PDT
Honda Center

Complete Coverage >


Gameday Prediction: Jagr scores a few goals... Wait, what's that? Oh.

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