Blooming Onion

Hello, 

How quickly things change. How quickly people turn.

I don’t need to rehash anything, you’ve probably already argued with like five people. I imagine at some point or another you’ve argued one side and then switched to another and then switched back. 

I’ll make this one shorter, that’s a note I received that I’ll happily take. 

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking, I wanted to make sure I knew what I was going to say before I find out what I said. 

The reason the argument is so passionate and so intractable, is because we are arguing two different unrelated points. We’re on different wavelengths. It’s easy to understand. 

You have correctly recognized I am a rude, loud, angry, disrespectful, asshole and I’m mildly inaccurate. Bonjour. I am not nice. I am not going to be nice. I am a rude person. The reason my words have been interpreted as being offensive is misunderstanding the chain of events that I’m discussing. The trustee and the onion are the two parties who made the deal. They alone are involved in its creation, they are the two parties who negotiated. They are responsible and I’m only talking about the responsible parties. 

The deal the Onion made is not the deal the trustee made. On one side of this deal, the Onion receives articles in every website, interviews on the biggest podcasts, segments on Maddow, Tim saying “it’s all about subscriptions for the Onion” on the majority report. Subs of which they do not share a cut

Imagine the ad spend you would need to equal that exposure. Priceless, more than millions of dollars. In the words of Jimmy james, free advertising, well that’s something you just can’t buy. 

On the other side of the deal is an agreement to defray the cost of leasing the building by taking money from their bank account and giving it to a landlord’s bank account. The building itself is also filled with yard sale material, so in two ways I may be literally wrong, but I think the metaphor of an empty building, a facade with no substance inside, is a fair assessment.

After all, I did successfully drop out of five different universities. Maybe it’s not the best metaphor, but i’m not writing middlemarch

Then there is the vague promise of a lump sum. 

Fine. But, whatever anyone may think of this deal, it is not equal on both sides, it is substantially unequal and where I’m from, that’s a swindle. That means someone is doing the swindling and a person who does the swindle is a swindler and I hate swindlers. I hate people who take advantage of other people. 

So when I hear everyone, and I mean everyone, I’m the only person saying this, cheering for a deal that splits the profits of merch because “that is a way to get money to the families”, I think, aren’t we actually cheering for a billionaire getting a taste? Why does a billionaire need a taste? How america-brained have we become that no one even bats an eye at a billionaire getting a taste. 

The criticisms I’ve received tell another story, also. You’ve conceded my math. There’s no money in the merch. The onion knows there’s no money in the merch. Did the trustee know that? Is the trustee an expert in the media business? Why not a cut of ad revenue? How many views did that Tim Infowars video receive? How many ad dollars did it make? There’s no money, how many years has it been? Are these lawyers working for free? The money’s not going to be there at the end of all of this.

When the onion first announced the plan, they went after front page news,won’t they do the funniest thing, and then they were blocked. And they received front page news. During that time period, they got plenty of subscriptions.

If the goal was obtaining infowars, if that’s the endgame, then after that first saga, you should learn from your previous mistakes, and you should wait until the deal is completely done. Instead, they did the same thing as last time. They didn’t make a mistake, it’s the whole point. Then they were blocked again and people didn’t blame them for fucking up. They didn’t say the Onion is incapable of learning. They said aw shucks, isn’t infowars evil? The point is the front page. 

Now if you’ve conceded there’s no money in the merch, then every article that said, this is finally a way to get money to the families was filled with untrue information. You’ve conceded that all of these people are guilty of either not thinking or of deliberately misleading.

I’ll say this, when I die and God lists all of my many sins before he sends me to hell, the truthfulness of that video will not be among them.

So we’ve both conceded something. I’ve taken responsibility for my part. 

Now I ask why does the billionaire need a taste? If merch money is funny money, why does the billionaire still need a cut? What are we doing? If a college football player gets a signing bonus, why not just add a million dollar bonus in there. Fuck it. Here’s a million dollars. Why not 15 percent of ad revenue? Why not at least get an affiliate link so they can get a commission on subscriptions made through infowars? A billionaire low balled them and we live in a capitalist hellscape where maybe this is actually the best we can do, and that the bar is so low it’s in the bottom of a latrine, at least don’t cheer for it! 

We can force the onion to do better. One part of this deal is more than priceless, it’s good will. All of you coming to protect the good corporation from, me, the mean gorilla that escaped from a zoo. That means if you decided to say, I’d love to subscribe to the onion, if they decide to give all of the merch profits, we can make it happen. 

Because if someone gets sick or injured, and has a medical bill, that merch money won’t cut it. It won’t be the lawyers, the estate, the judges, the bankruptcy system, the billionaire who helps. It will be us. If we want people who suffer to be cared for in our society, we are the ones who must make sure that happens. We cannot cheer billionaires for deigning to split a little. We just can’t. 

On a different subject, one that I didn’t expect, I’ve been praised a lot for being open and honest about being bipolar type 1. I am praised because of what happens when people know you have a mental illness and you speak up for yourself or for others. People dismiss you by calling you crazy or say he’s lost control. Maybe they don’t say Jordan is crazy, maybe they send text messages to someone else asking if I’m ok. This way no one has to deal with what I’m saying. Whether or not you think that is what you have done, it is what the people with similar mental health issues as me see you doing. When they see you do it to me, a person you care for, what do they think will happen to them? Many people think it’s just the right wing, but people with mental illness are scared to be open with everyone. Who knows what people might do with that information. I’m publicly bipolar, will someone see my work online and say I won’t hire this person?

For all the care that people expressed, and a lot of it I believe to be in good faith, no one talked to me. A few people sent me an email. People talked about me and sent messages to other people. It’s taken a month of self examination to be sure, but it turns out I don’t care what people say about me. Either everyone is afraid of me, or worse, people don’t believe I’m capable of speaking for myself. 

Truthfully, we should all think about how our words can cause collateral damage.

After this experience, I’ve realized I’m not sure where everyone stands. I can’t and shouldn’t ask people to stand anywhere. All I can do is stand right here and say this is my space. If you like this space, please, come in. You’re welcome. If you don’t, that’s an equally good choice. I’m not here to tell anyone what to do.  

Because I didn’t send you that video. I didn’t go outside of my little stream. I didn’t ask anyone to watch it. I said what I said. And in terms of volume, that was maybe a 6 out of 10 on my scale. If I’m having an actual episode, you’ll know, it’ll be on the news. 

And later, history books.

I’m going to stay off for awhile longer, then I’m going to be here on this stream. All I can do is provide a space for people who want it. If you want to be here, you’re welcome. Thank you.