Delusions of Grandeur: Charles Carreon Has Eaten All the Clo
Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2013 8:38 pmDelusions of Grandeur - Charles Carreon has Eaten All the Clothespins
Friday, June 22, 2012
UPDATE: After this blog post went *slightly* viral, it was brought to my attention that Mrs. Carreon had...um...taken exception to my commentary on her husband's behavior. You can see her reaction here, or here and here if the Carreons decide to initiate what @WillRossWriter refers to as "Code DFE" (Delete Fucking Everything). Rest assured, this "lying little bitch" is in no way fazed by Mrs. Carreon's threats, and I will continue to write as this saga unfolds. Enjoy the blog post. More to come.
UPDATE: For the latest on the Bear Love Campaign and to find out how you can help protest Charles Carreon's despicable lawsuit, go here.
Image courtesy of tauntingpanda. Jelly beans courtesy of Channone.
When I was in elementary school, I was the good kid. I was friendly, smart, helpful, and obedient. Teachers loved having me in their classes and fellow students wanted to be my friend. As a reward for my excellent behavior and good grades, I was compensated year after year in the same way. I was made to sit by the worst kid in class, so that I could “be a good influence on them.”
For a sensitive kid, with a major failure complex and crippling anxiety, this was a perennial nightmare. I could not abide other kids who were just bad for seemingly no reason, other than personal amusement. By fifth grade, I had had enough. As I walked around the room looking for my desk on the first day of school, I found my name placard neatly taped to a desk near the windows, underneath the clothesline where the teacher would hang students’ artwork with bright, neon, plastic clothespins. To my horror, the placard taped to the desk next to it read:
Brandon
Brandon was indubitably the worst kid that has ever attended elementary school in any country at any point in history. Some of his claims to fame included nearly concussing himself by banging his head against cement walls, screaming bloody murder randomly throughout the day with no provocation, and urinating in his chair on purpose when a teacher would not let him get up and walk around the classroom.
“No. No effing way,” thought tiny Ann Bransom.
When Brandon entered the room, he didn’t even have to look around to find his seat, because when he made eye contact with me a huge Cheshire cat grin spread across his face. He could tell by the look on my face, exactly where his seat was.
When he sat down next to me, I leaned over to him, and in a hushed and stern voice said, “Look. You cannot be insane this year. So here’s what you are going to do. You are going to come in every day, sit down, shut up, and not screw up, because I am NOT going to get in trouble, because you are acting like an idiot. Tell me you understand the words I am saying to you.”
Brandon sat looking at me for a moment with his newly buzzed hair, meticulously teased out rat tail, and big blue watery eyes…
Then he got up and ate one of the plastic clothespins, metal springs and all.
Throughout history, teachers have struggled with how to maintain order in the classroom. Disciplinary tactics have ranged from bare-bottom birchings to non-verbal cues and humanistic i-messaging. In my opinion, the tactic that has historically been the most effective is the following:
“If one more person acts up, then no recess for anyone.”
The Brandons of the world could not be controlled by the fear of a teacher doling out a solitary punishment, or even the influence of sitting next to a good kid. But the fear of TWENTY good kids ready to murder him if they could not run around outside for thirty minutes like a gang of maniacs…
That gives one the pause necessary to reflect upon whether or not the behavior is worth the consequence.
Charles Carreon has eaten all the clothespins.
He has also threatened to burn the playground to the ground, gag the teacher, and hold us all at gunpoint with a water pistol.
The internet has rightly responded by saying, “Sit down, shut up, and quit being insane.”
I do not advocate the majority having the right to silence the minority. I think everyone’s voice has a right to be heard, Charles Carreon’s and his family’s included. That said, there is a reason that the audience was right 91% of the time on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, or that the oft repeated Jelly Bean counting studies have proven that while individuals are miserably bad at guessing, as a group we are frighteningly accurate. We may disagree on which jelly bean tastes the best, and this disagreement is what leads to innovation and growth, which is a very good thing. But the number of jelly beans in the jar is not open to debate, and as a group we are very good at assessing what the facts are.
The rage that Charles Carreon is enduring is not born, necessarily, out of a disagreement over moral ambiguities like who was the bigger asshole, Inman or FunnyJunk. It is born of his stubborn refusal to accept facts as they exist, and understand that the entire rest of the world is not going to suffer gladly one individual’s litigious revenge for being butthurt. Moreover, the entire rest of the world is not going to suffer gladly, one person’s antics threatening our recess, or in this case, our ability to speak our opinions, share our frustrations and criticisms, and openly debate controversial issues without fear of costly, time consuming abuses of our legal system.
The time has come for Charles Carreon to accept how many jelly beans are in the jars. Here is the official count for each jar of cray:
“My haters have delusions of grandeur - they think 'they are the Internet' and their opinions matter to someone besides themselves.”
Grandiose delusions or delusions of grandeur are a very real symptom of a mental disorder. If Charles Carreon were to seek professional help, and I believe he absolutely should, I am completely confident that any mental health professional would qualify starting one’s own religion, crusading against the “unwashed masses” with no support from anyone other than one’s own equally mentally disordered family members, and being legitimately surprised when corporations as large as Google do not personally respond to you or "pull the switch or click the box", as clear indicators of disordered thinking.
Also, point of order, we are the internet and our opinions do matter to others besides ourselves. That is why the internet exists.
In response to being questioned over the discrepancy between his claim of always using “tempered speech” and his categorically NOT tempered speech on his innumerable websites where he and his wife photoshop people they don’t like into sexual situations, rant on ad nauseum about the conspiracies that these people are no doubt a part of, and habitually refer to detractors and critics as “retards” and other less savory terms: “I am not a politician. I have not deceived anyone. I am not able to stand armies. It is entirely distinct. The grounds for engaging in savage satire of people who are murderers [is a] completely different situation. That’s like comparing touch football with warfare.”
I’m pretty sure that (NSFW) Matthew Inman and (NSFW) Kathleen Parker do not have “armies” at their disposal to “stand”. What this boils down to is simply the delusional, wildly immature belief of a covert (and not even very covert) narcissist, in which “It’s not offensive if I do it, because…um…I’m the one doing it. And I’m special.”
Charles Carreon is not special, and neither is anyone of us. If I do something offensive on this blog, I have to own the consequences. Sometimes that means admitting when I’m wrong, exercising self-deprecation where appropriate, or simply enduring the criticism of those who oppose my beliefs. That is one of the many things Carreon doesn’t understand. No one is saying he is not allowed to be offended, or even believe and write about all the schizophrenic madness to which he and his wife subscribe. On the contrary, what we are saying is that he is not allowed to exercise that right, and then try to deny it to someone else under a veiled and tasteless attempt to hush them by fucking up their day with a lawsuit.
When asked if he will pursue his hopeless search for the people currently impersonating him online, his response: "Of course I will: Doe 1 in the Complaint becomes named defendant after Twitter and Ars Technica answer subpoena."
This is yet another example of the disproportionate response of someone who has apparently been living under a rock for the last five years of social media evolution. If someone impersonates you on Twitter, and does not make it clear that it is a parody, you have every right to expect that account to be shut down. So you report the account to Twitter.
The end.
Twitter took the account down as soon as it was reported. Subpoenaing Twitter and Ars is like trying to put out a candle with a fire house, and only someone with a pathological amount of self-importance would send a subpoena to Twitter and expect anything besides the response of FOAD.
“I win by making the world a place where the law of charitable giving, wisely enacted over fifty years ago by the California legislature, will secure the rights of genuine charitable fundraisers to not have to compete with false advertising and unregistered charitable fundraisers who can take the money and vamoose, as so many have done.”
Right now the only thing that two genuine charitable fundraisers are having to compete with, is an asinine attorney forcing them to spend money that might go to help animals or cure cancer, and instead give it to other attorneys who will have to use that money to teach Mr. Carreon how to read. The statute he cites as his basis for suing Inman, IndieGoGo, the National Wildlife Federation, and the American Cancer Society does not apply in this situation.
1. Inman is not a fundraiser. He is an individual raising money for charity.
2. IndieGoGo is not a fundraiser. It is web platform that allows users to set up fundraisers and/or donate to fundraisers. They are entitled to compensation for those services, just as porta potty companies are entitled for compensation for providing a hundred places for participants to take a dump at every charity walk/run in the country. Fundraising has overhead. That doesn’t mean that every service provider becomes a “fundraiser” themselves. Furthermore, they make that compensation structure perfectly clear in their terms of use policy easily located on any page of their website.
3. The National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society are not and should not be held liable for every dollar raised in their names, because the cost of hiring hundreds of psychics to know whenever a lemonade stand or paypal donor account is setup would be too cost prohibitive for them to help anyone.
I could go on labeling all the other jars of cray, but really why bother? Foaming at the mouth with the desire to prove just how hypocritical, greedy, self-involved, and insane Charles Carreon is is an understandable response to this cluster of a lawsuit, but given the fact that although there has been a modicum of support emerging for FunnyJunk’s part to play in this saga, I would challenge anyone to show me A SINGLE COMMENT in support of Charles Carreon that cannot be attributed to him, his wife, or his two daughters. Fred Phelps has more supporters outside of his own family than Charles Carreon does. I’m not sure that can be said about anyone else in the history of the Internet. So the only people we are really trying to convince are Charles Carreon (who can’t be convinced for this reason), Tara Carreon (who can’t be convinced for this reason), and his two daughters (who can’t be convinced for this reason).
Our new focus should be highlighting the legal aspects of this case by sharing the awesome analysis of the Carreon vs. Inman Lawsuit that is being done by the likes of Pope Hat, The Legal Satyricon, and Lowering the Bar. As social media users and bloggers, we need to become better versed in copyright and trademark law, so we can protect ourselves against those who would censor us for any reason, and, also to know when we have crossed the line and need to edit ourselves. Because that is what Mr. Carreon is the most unwilling to accept.
Integrity is not measured by our refusal to bend, redact, or edit ourselves, nor is it measured by our ability to draft and mail legal documents and pay court fees.
It is measured by our ability to hear other people’s points of view, temper those views with our own principles, admit when we are wrong, and stand up for what is good for everyone, not just ourselves.
Friday, June 22, 2012
UPDATE: After this blog post went *slightly* viral, it was brought to my attention that Mrs. Carreon had...um...taken exception to my commentary on her husband's behavior. You can see her reaction here, or here and here if the Carreons decide to initiate what @WillRossWriter refers to as "Code DFE" (Delete Fucking Everything). Rest assured, this "lying little bitch" is in no way fazed by Mrs. Carreon's threats, and I will continue to write as this saga unfolds. Enjoy the blog post. More to come.
UPDATE: For the latest on the Bear Love Campaign and to find out how you can help protest Charles Carreon's despicable lawsuit, go here.
Image courtesy of tauntingpanda. Jelly beans courtesy of Channone.
When I was in elementary school, I was the good kid. I was friendly, smart, helpful, and obedient. Teachers loved having me in their classes and fellow students wanted to be my friend. As a reward for my excellent behavior and good grades, I was compensated year after year in the same way. I was made to sit by the worst kid in class, so that I could “be a good influence on them.”
For a sensitive kid, with a major failure complex and crippling anxiety, this was a perennial nightmare. I could not abide other kids who were just bad for seemingly no reason, other than personal amusement. By fifth grade, I had had enough. As I walked around the room looking for my desk on the first day of school, I found my name placard neatly taped to a desk near the windows, underneath the clothesline where the teacher would hang students’ artwork with bright, neon, plastic clothespins. To my horror, the placard taped to the desk next to it read:
Brandon
Brandon was indubitably the worst kid that has ever attended elementary school in any country at any point in history. Some of his claims to fame included nearly concussing himself by banging his head against cement walls, screaming bloody murder randomly throughout the day with no provocation, and urinating in his chair on purpose when a teacher would not let him get up and walk around the classroom.
“No. No effing way,” thought tiny Ann Bransom.
When Brandon entered the room, he didn’t even have to look around to find his seat, because when he made eye contact with me a huge Cheshire cat grin spread across his face. He could tell by the look on my face, exactly where his seat was.
When he sat down next to me, I leaned over to him, and in a hushed and stern voice said, “Look. You cannot be insane this year. So here’s what you are going to do. You are going to come in every day, sit down, shut up, and not screw up, because I am NOT going to get in trouble, because you are acting like an idiot. Tell me you understand the words I am saying to you.”
Brandon sat looking at me for a moment with his newly buzzed hair, meticulously teased out rat tail, and big blue watery eyes…
Then he got up and ate one of the plastic clothespins, metal springs and all.
Throughout history, teachers have struggled with how to maintain order in the classroom. Disciplinary tactics have ranged from bare-bottom birchings to non-verbal cues and humanistic i-messaging. In my opinion, the tactic that has historically been the most effective is the following:
“If one more person acts up, then no recess for anyone.”
The Brandons of the world could not be controlled by the fear of a teacher doling out a solitary punishment, or even the influence of sitting next to a good kid. But the fear of TWENTY good kids ready to murder him if they could not run around outside for thirty minutes like a gang of maniacs…
That gives one the pause necessary to reflect upon whether or not the behavior is worth the consequence.
Charles Carreon has eaten all the clothespins.
He has also threatened to burn the playground to the ground, gag the teacher, and hold us all at gunpoint with a water pistol.
The internet has rightly responded by saying, “Sit down, shut up, and quit being insane.”
I do not advocate the majority having the right to silence the minority. I think everyone’s voice has a right to be heard, Charles Carreon’s and his family’s included. That said, there is a reason that the audience was right 91% of the time on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, or that the oft repeated Jelly Bean counting studies have proven that while individuals are miserably bad at guessing, as a group we are frighteningly accurate. We may disagree on which jelly bean tastes the best, and this disagreement is what leads to innovation and growth, which is a very good thing. But the number of jelly beans in the jar is not open to debate, and as a group we are very good at assessing what the facts are.
The rage that Charles Carreon is enduring is not born, necessarily, out of a disagreement over moral ambiguities like who was the bigger asshole, Inman or FunnyJunk. It is born of his stubborn refusal to accept facts as they exist, and understand that the entire rest of the world is not going to suffer gladly one individual’s litigious revenge for being butthurt. Moreover, the entire rest of the world is not going to suffer gladly, one person’s antics threatening our recess, or in this case, our ability to speak our opinions, share our frustrations and criticisms, and openly debate controversial issues without fear of costly, time consuming abuses of our legal system.
The time has come for Charles Carreon to accept how many jelly beans are in the jars. Here is the official count for each jar of cray:
“My haters have delusions of grandeur - they think 'they are the Internet' and their opinions matter to someone besides themselves.”
Grandiose delusions or delusions of grandeur are a very real symptom of a mental disorder. If Charles Carreon were to seek professional help, and I believe he absolutely should, I am completely confident that any mental health professional would qualify starting one’s own religion, crusading against the “unwashed masses” with no support from anyone other than one’s own equally mentally disordered family members, and being legitimately surprised when corporations as large as Google do not personally respond to you or "pull the switch or click the box", as clear indicators of disordered thinking.
Also, point of order, we are the internet and our opinions do matter to others besides ourselves. That is why the internet exists.
In response to being questioned over the discrepancy between his claim of always using “tempered speech” and his categorically NOT tempered speech on his innumerable websites where he and his wife photoshop people they don’t like into sexual situations, rant on ad nauseum about the conspiracies that these people are no doubt a part of, and habitually refer to detractors and critics as “retards” and other less savory terms: “I am not a politician. I have not deceived anyone. I am not able to stand armies. It is entirely distinct. The grounds for engaging in savage satire of people who are murderers [is a] completely different situation. That’s like comparing touch football with warfare.”
I’m pretty sure that (NSFW) Matthew Inman and (NSFW) Kathleen Parker do not have “armies” at their disposal to “stand”. What this boils down to is simply the delusional, wildly immature belief of a covert (and not even very covert) narcissist, in which “It’s not offensive if I do it, because…um…I’m the one doing it. And I’m special.”
Charles Carreon is not special, and neither is anyone of us. If I do something offensive on this blog, I have to own the consequences. Sometimes that means admitting when I’m wrong, exercising self-deprecation where appropriate, or simply enduring the criticism of those who oppose my beliefs. That is one of the many things Carreon doesn’t understand. No one is saying he is not allowed to be offended, or even believe and write about all the schizophrenic madness to which he and his wife subscribe. On the contrary, what we are saying is that he is not allowed to exercise that right, and then try to deny it to someone else under a veiled and tasteless attempt to hush them by fucking up their day with a lawsuit.
When asked if he will pursue his hopeless search for the people currently impersonating him online, his response: "Of course I will: Doe 1 in the Complaint becomes named defendant after Twitter and Ars Technica answer subpoena."
This is yet another example of the disproportionate response of someone who has apparently been living under a rock for the last five years of social media evolution. If someone impersonates you on Twitter, and does not make it clear that it is a parody, you have every right to expect that account to be shut down. So you report the account to Twitter.
The end.
Twitter took the account down as soon as it was reported. Subpoenaing Twitter and Ars is like trying to put out a candle with a fire house, and only someone with a pathological amount of self-importance would send a subpoena to Twitter and expect anything besides the response of FOAD.
“I win by making the world a place where the law of charitable giving, wisely enacted over fifty years ago by the California legislature, will secure the rights of genuine charitable fundraisers to not have to compete with false advertising and unregistered charitable fundraisers who can take the money and vamoose, as so many have done.”
Right now the only thing that two genuine charitable fundraisers are having to compete with, is an asinine attorney forcing them to spend money that might go to help animals or cure cancer, and instead give it to other attorneys who will have to use that money to teach Mr. Carreon how to read. The statute he cites as his basis for suing Inman, IndieGoGo, the National Wildlife Federation, and the American Cancer Society does not apply in this situation.
1. Inman is not a fundraiser. He is an individual raising money for charity.
2. IndieGoGo is not a fundraiser. It is web platform that allows users to set up fundraisers and/or donate to fundraisers. They are entitled to compensation for those services, just as porta potty companies are entitled for compensation for providing a hundred places for participants to take a dump at every charity walk/run in the country. Fundraising has overhead. That doesn’t mean that every service provider becomes a “fundraiser” themselves. Furthermore, they make that compensation structure perfectly clear in their terms of use policy easily located on any page of their website.
3. The National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society are not and should not be held liable for every dollar raised in their names, because the cost of hiring hundreds of psychics to know whenever a lemonade stand or paypal donor account is setup would be too cost prohibitive for them to help anyone.
I could go on labeling all the other jars of cray, but really why bother? Foaming at the mouth with the desire to prove just how hypocritical, greedy, self-involved, and insane Charles Carreon is is an understandable response to this cluster of a lawsuit, but given the fact that although there has been a modicum of support emerging for FunnyJunk’s part to play in this saga, I would challenge anyone to show me A SINGLE COMMENT in support of Charles Carreon that cannot be attributed to him, his wife, or his two daughters. Fred Phelps has more supporters outside of his own family than Charles Carreon does. I’m not sure that can be said about anyone else in the history of the Internet. So the only people we are really trying to convince are Charles Carreon (who can’t be convinced for this reason), Tara Carreon (who can’t be convinced for this reason), and his two daughters (who can’t be convinced for this reason).
Our new focus should be highlighting the legal aspects of this case by sharing the awesome analysis of the Carreon vs. Inman Lawsuit that is being done by the likes of Pope Hat, The Legal Satyricon, and Lowering the Bar. As social media users and bloggers, we need to become better versed in copyright and trademark law, so we can protect ourselves against those who would censor us for any reason, and, also to know when we have crossed the line and need to edit ourselves. Because that is what Mr. Carreon is the most unwilling to accept.
Integrity is not measured by our refusal to bend, redact, or edit ourselves, nor is it measured by our ability to draft and mail legal documents and pay court fees.
It is measured by our ability to hear other people’s points of view, temper those views with our own principles, admit when we are wrong, and stand up for what is good for everyone, not just ourselves.
