Also, featuring the price of his liquor bottles (prominent in the first article about this by the same writer) is indicative of the level of pettiness involved. Maybe there's an actual story here, but this isn't it, and it's not clear that the story is more than "someone said something regrettable on Twitter".
I mean, sure...who are you arguing with? I didn't say nobody should cover this. I said this article is terrible.
> But denying that public calls to violence spurs actual violence is denial of basic cause and effect.
Yeah, except we have laws around this concept, and even if what you're saying were true in the US (it isn't, thankfully), it doesn't magicaly make hack journalism good.
Said differently, "incitement to violence" doesn't mean that missionlocal is high-minded and mature for spending two articles talking about the price of his liquor.
Garry Tan chose to flaunt the high-end liquor bottles and "Twitter menace" plaque ahead of his sort-of-apology, not missionlocal.
Only one of the articles (not the one linked) refers to them at all. The other one focuses more on the hate mail some idiot decided to send being a screenshot of Tan's original tweet, and both of them are pretty clear about it being a rap lyric.
Kind of hard to argue with a straight face that the real problem with the YC CEO acting like a not-very-smart bro influencer even in his sort-of-apology is that some local rag journalist didn't spare the embarrassing detail.
Sure, Tan was probably more interested in highlighting the "twitter menace" plaque than the fairly expensive liquor and unremarkably-priced wine, but celebrities flaunting wealth with a laughing emoji as a "fuck you" to their critics is a well established trope, and I don't think high-minded, mature journalism is about taking the most sympathetic interpretation possible of bro silliness.