Megatokyo frenzy!

Today, Scott Kurtz posts a reaction to the Internet furor over his snipe at Megatokyo (quoted here).

Mega-blow up
It looks like there's been a lot of fall out from the stupid joke I cracked this weekend about the parting of Megatokyo founders Rodney Caston and Fred Gallagher. First, Fred vomited up this big "confessional", followed by a sort of apology for over reacting. Then Rodney's blog got slammed by Fred haters and my inbox got flooded with people who wanted me to do everything from issue a written apology to prepare for a lawsuit over my "slanderous actions."

The internet means never having to forget what highschool was like.

I have to tell you, I think Kurtz is hilarious. He is almost an Internet badass.

I say "almost" because (at least, according to this guy) he removed his original post about MT. A real badass would, like Eric Burns, stand by his words, whatever they were. This has the bonus effect of making you, perhaps, think before speaking.

I have personally decided never to delete anything off my site, though my reasons are more egotistical than anything. Basically, I love myself, and I want to share all my thoughts with the world. All of them. Even the ones that would hurt people. Which is why I didn't delete this post, or this one, or this one, even though I hurt people's feelings with them. Ultimately, I'm leaving them there for history, so that my biographers will have a complete picture of what kind of person I was.

(Please don't call the guys in white coats on me for expecting to have biographers. It's my happy ego-dream.)

Since those three posts I have been more careful about what I write here, thinking long and hard before mentioning someone by name. That's a part of who I am, too; while I'm not fond of censoring myself, I realize that this journal isn't just for me and my biographers. It's read by people right now, and I have to respect those people.

How far can you go? That's a question I've struggled with; the line is being constantly negotiated by every single person who self-publishes on the Internet. But to me, making a hurtful post is less of an offense than deleting a post. The first is excusable (and even funny, like Kurtz's rants), but the second just seems like lying, or covering up the evidence. Once something's been published, you can't ever take it back. Not in the Information Age. Trying to do so only makes you seem untrustworthy.

So that, my friends, is my one and only beef with Scott Kurtz's rants.