Feet of Clay

Blog posts have been few and far between over the past year. I have been disciplined enough to fill in my "daily pages" journal and a daily entry in my "five minute journal" documenting three items I am grateful for. A few draft blog posts, but no published blog posts from mid-2018.  Until today.

The twitter war over the last week or so between Jonathon Little and David Lappin, co-host of The Chip Race, has been bothering me to the point where it is time for me to write out some thoughts.

The timeline, which I am unlikely to get completely accurate, but am too lazy to go back and verify, but for the purposes of this blog post, which is likely to be read by zero people, seems to be:

• Toward the end of 2018, a guest on the podcast, "The Chip Race" says, in response to one of the hosts asking for a response to something Jonathan Little said, "Well Jonathan Little can go fuck himself". 
• The Chip Race then uses that phrase to promote the episode in question
• I am unaware of any blowback from Jonathan Little around the time of the podcast
• David Lappin and Dara O'Kearney become involved in a social media war with Daniel Negranu. Eventually, the war quiets down.
• The war erupts again about a week or so ago. And one of Negranu's tweets mentions that the Chip Race has denigrated Jonathan Little
• Little, who is tagged on Negranu's tweet, then joins the twitter war. From having not gone ballistic last year, this time Little charges into the fray and goes ballistic.
• Negranu retires to the sidelines
• Lappin retaliates by calling out an episode of questionable behavior by Little 11 years or so ago.
• Little berates the listeners of the Chip Race as "lowlife".
• Little continues to tee off at the Chip Race hosts,  Dara O'Kearney and David Lappin, over the course of the past week or so

My observations as a fan of both Jonathan Little and the hosts of the podcast are:

• In my view, Negranu has been behaving like a large three-year-old, and when he has a temper tantrum, it is likely to of a coprolalic nature. My opinion of Negranu as a poker player is that he remains one of the best in the world. My respect for him as a mature adult ... well, not so much.
• The Chip Race's promotion of the comment regarding Jonathan Little ("Jonathan Little can go fuck himself") did not come across to me as hugely disrespectful to Jonathan. My perception was that these two Irish gents saw a marketing opportunity for their podcast, along with the chance to have a bit of childish fun and seized upon it. If anything, they were guilty of ribbing their guest for making such a faux pas
• Jonathan's tweets over the past week (and Negranu's over the past few months) have been disappointing to see. When people who you thought were exemplars of behavior within the poker community reveal themselves to have feet of clay, it is disappointing.  
• If there was any damage done to Jonathan's brand, in my view it was all self-inflicted. I thought highly of Jonathan before the podcast in question and the promotion in question. The podcast had no effect on my view of Jonathan.  I viewed him as having a great work ethic, produced lots of content and I enjoyed the content from him that I consumed.  Nothing changed until last week.
• Subsequent to Jonathan joining the Twitter war between Lappin & Negranu, I can now add to my perception of his make up: the inability to remain emotionally equanimous in the face of mild irritation, needlessly insulting bystanders (followers of the Chip Race, like me, but who are also consumers of Jonathan's content), assuming the way he would react to the situation he found himself in would be the way *Everyone* *All* *Around* *The* *World* would react, and not understanding there are other cultures out there that may approach things differently. I believe the concept I am looking for is "projection". That is, assuming that he would only act in the way the Chip Race had acted if he had had bad intent. And therefore, he attributes, incorrectly,  bad intent to the Chip Race hosts where there was, in truth, no bad intent. From my perspective, he got it wrong. If Jonathan was truly worried about damage to his brand he would have been far better off sitting on his hands.
•  If Jonathan had listened to four episodes of the Chip Race, as I believe he has claimed in one of his tweets, then he would likely have heard David & Dara *really* going after Iany Simpson. Yet Iany has been one of the people defending David & Dara on Twitter. Culturally slagging off your mates with a bit of banter, so long as it is in good humor, is something the Irish have been known to do. Americans, apparently, not so much. The way the Chip Race used the faux pas relating to Jonathan seemed to be, at worst,  a pretty gentle form of the slagging. And I certainly felt there was no evil intent in their use of the faux pas.
• Lappin's bringing up the questionable behavior from 2008 or so felt like dirty play to me. I have known people who behaved poorly in their 20's, saw the error of their ways, and behaved impeccably in their later years. I feel Jonathan Little falls into that category. And good behavior should be applauded. I admire Little's work ethic, his poker ability, his obvious love for his kiddies, and the content he creates. He has more than redeemed himself.
• Little's outrage at the Chip Race hosts seems to me to have a large element of cultural misunderstanding at its heart. Having lived in New Zealand and Australia for the best part of 60 years, my perception of the Chip Race's references to Jonathan that so enraged him, were that the Irish guys were either having a bit of fun at the guest's expense and/or Jonathan's. But that they didn't have malicious intent towards Jonathan. Outside the US there are often references to Americans inability to handle irony or nuance. Irish culture tolerates friends slagging each other whereas American culture seems much less tolerant of this behavior. My view is that Jonathan misread the situation and has taken umbrage at a scenario where the mature response would have been to completely ignore the issue. If he had ignored Negranu's attempt to dragoon him into Negranu's fight with the Chip Race he would not have, in my eyes, diminished his personal brand through the use of offensive tweets over the past week. As a Chip Race listener, I was mildly offended when Jonathan declared that listeners to the Chip Race were "lowlife".
• Dara has done well to stay completely silent on Twitter with respects to Jonathan's tweets.
• I just wish Lappin and Little would stop tweeting about this so I can go back to enjoying the content from both of them.