You do realize that Penny Arcade has like a bazillion readers, so it’s not a coordinated DDOS attack if all bazillion of them click a link on the front page, right?
Correct. It is not.
It’s more like a fuckon of free traffic!
Penny Arcade is two guys who are pundits, and I assign to them the weight of opinion that two people have.
That’s the worst rickroll I’ve ever seen.
Your “joke” doesn’t even make sense.
You say that like it’s a negative thing.
Yes it does.
It totally makes sense. And it is funny.
To be fair to wars about who’s funny and who’s not, “‘ironic hipster’ lion’s den” is a really funny phrase.
On the one hand, Gabe might have wanted to stop tweeting and posting maybe a couple of tweets (or posts) sooner. Jokingly indicating that someone might be a rapist is possibly a step too far.
On the other hand, I’ve listened to the Sound of Young America and Jesse Thorn honestly inspires in me a desire to punch people in the kidneys like few others.
Our greeting: a double thumbs-up. Our credo: “Be More Awesome.” Our lifestyle: “Maximum Fun.”
God, I just want to kick him in the stomach.
From a writing standpoint I was more amused by the fraction of their balls:
I have no idea of the day-to-day obligations of Penny Arcade creators Jerry “Tycho” Holkins and Mike “Gabe” Krahulik, but I imagine they’re quite busy with their mini-empire of comics, video games, conventions and merchandise, and I respect that being forced to wait around to get interviewed would be frustrating for people with only a fraction of the balls in the air that the two of them have.
I’m still confused how driving traffic to their site is considered a coordinated DDoS attack.
Alex is not of this world.
Their site was back up today so I took a few moments to visit and listen to one of their podcasts. Although that’s not entirely accurate, because I lasted maybe 5 minutes and didn’t listen to the entire 1 hour 26 minute podcast. My verdict: these were two guys not energetic or funny enough for morning radio and not informative enough for NPR. They’re just bland and dull.
If anything, the real story here is why PA’s publicist thought booking them on this show was a good idea. It would be like booking Harlan Ellison to make an appearance on the Martha Stewart Show.
Sorry, if a guy calls himself “America’s Radio Sweetheart” on his internet podcast, he’s an ironic hipster.
And…?
That’s a terrible analogy, because you know Ellison on Stewart would be priceless. Maybe not as awesome as cookie monster, but priceless.
The real PR fuck-up here is that a good publicist books you to gigs that are meant to increase your exposure significantly. That’s to say, the gig should either be a larger audience than you currently have (e.g., David Letterman), or a potentially smaller but orthogonal audience than what you’re exposed to (e.g., Jay Leno). Ideally, both (e.g., Oprah Winfrey). These guys’ audience was neither larger than nor orthogonal to what PA already has. The fact that the “host” (a) held audience for them in his taxidermy-infested house, (b) made them wait an hour before recording, and then (c) utterly failed to involve them during the podcast itself just makes it worse. This guy should have at least recognized that he was getting exposure by having them, and taken advantage of it by being (at the least) professional enough to be on time and to make the show about the guys who are on the publicity tour.
The point being, it didn’t take long to determine what an obviously bad fit it was. So unless these guys have a huge swath of fans into profanity and video games that weren’t yet Penny Arcade readers, the interview served no purpose for PA.