"I assure you I'm not joking" - j/k

"I assure you I'm not joking" - j/k

In an interview with Kara Swisher of All Things Digital, Jason Calacanis clears the air on his now-discredited tweets in which he claimed to have been beta testing the Apple Tablet, now known as the iPad. It was all harmless fun, he says, and no one who knows anything about tech would have or should have taken him seriously. So basically, we're the stupid ones for believing the late night tweets of a prominent and trusted tech blogger and editor. Well, don't I feel stupid... or do I?

[If not for the utter implausibility that Jason would fake this whole thing (he has too much to lose), I’d call BS. I’m buying his claims now, but it’s really taxing my natural skepticism (especially that part about the solar-powered back). If not for his claim of short battery life, I’d find the whole thing too fantastic to believe, and even that claim will depend on the level of usage he was testing. I’m tempted to just discount it all until the official rollout.] (http://www.gottabemobile.com/2010/01/27/10-oled-for-600-that-cant-be-right-can-it)

See, my mama didn't raise no dummy. I was ready to call BS, except, like a dummy, I gave the benefit of the doubt to "the founder of Weblogs Inc, TechCrunch50, reporter for Engadget, etc., at al", thinking he would not be so stupid as to burn his reputation on a hoax. My bad. I guess he was that stupid.

And to insult us by claiming we should have known it was BS because of how ridiculous it sounded. Yes, most of it was pretty absurd, but it was also peppered with negative comments about the "gimmic" solar panel, terrible battery life and "nothing new" video conferencing. Over-the-top absurdity only works if you go all the way. Bring the story back to earth every now and then shows intent to mislead.

It's like telling people a new car gets thousands of miles per gallon then saying its top speed is 10 mph. First part is ridiculous. Second part pulls it back to plausibility. The trustworthiness of the source determines if it's believable. Guess which part suffers if the story turns out to be false.

Even more damning is his tweet where he states, "I assure you I'm not joking." Oh right, how could I read that and not know he was joking? It's so obvious. It's like when a doctor says, "this won't hurt a bit" and then stabs you with a giant needle. Yeah, he lied but it's to soothe your fear of giant needles. Same situation, as long as your doctor's only stabbing you for fun.

But seriously (and notice how that transition helps you understand the previous part was not serious), the part about this debacle that irks me is that Calacanis has the audacity to blame everyone else for believing him. Sure, he co-founded a major blog network and is a member of the blogging "elite" but that means we should know "I assure you I'm not joking" really means "just kidding."

The sad thing is, Calacanis wields such power that he really doesn't need to apologize for lying, much like Dick Cheney never publicly apologized for shooting that guy in the face. His spin that this was a failure by the media, despite being a major media player himself, is likely to stick. Just another step toward "the end of empathy." (http://calacanis.com/2009/01/29/we-live-in-public-and-the-end-of-empathy/)
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