For a second there I was expecting the music at 34:10ish to turn into the
Savage titlecard music by Jeroen Tel.
Ah, the mob mentality. To summarize: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility
Paul whatshisface is scum, but the mob that's surrounding this is scary. Scarier is Gabe over at Penny Arcade. Not only has he unleashed a monster, he's
gleeful about it. His line "I will personally burn everything I've made to the fucking ground if I think I can catch them in the flames." was fucked up for a person, never mind a con runner and charity runner and employer, to say. "See this artist? I will ruin her job to try fuck you up! See these sick kids? I will stop them from getting toys if I can fuck you up!"
I read PA, but those guys really scare me sometimes. The more I see of them the more I respect Robert Khoo for both running the business and corralling them.
And yes, acting as gatekeeper for this kind of thing is a valuable service the Escapist provides:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/12/24/1533222/what-do-we-do-when-the-internet-mob-is-wrong
Wow. Selling those scammy door-to-door water filters [http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2011/cleanwaterdirtytricks/]? I'd have been a lousy salesman too.
I'm in customer service (way too many horror stories to tell*), but I've been told off for not upselling when someone asks my advice. I still won't do it. I'm not in a sales position, I wasn't hired for a sales position, I won't do it. And if I DID sell them something they don't need and they return it, I'm the one who gets yelled at when I tell them there's a restocking charge on returns. I don't need that.
* Okay, here's one: I did have one guy who was trying to rope me into his pyramid scheme. He came in so often - this is how sad it was, he came to a customer service desk trolling for suckers - I started taking my lunch breaks when he showed up and waited for him to get bored and leave. Fortunately his persistence never outlasted my lunch break.