Deleted Comments: Attack Of Multi-Troll Almost Distracted Us From Arizona Legislator's Furry Saga
One's a rubber-faced novelty item that became a fad for no good reason. The other's a doll.
Yr Wonkette was visited this weekend by a very clever troll with entirely too much time on his hands. If this guy had put as much effort into writing comments as he did in creating sockpuppet accounts, he might have been at least a little memorable. Still, Yr Dear Shitforbrains is all about recognizing the dubious achievements of our deleted commenters, so let's at least acknowledge that our visitor at least has a talent for creating disposable Disqus accounts: at least 18 of them, by our count.
Among the troll's multiple identities, this twerp showed up as "Perfect Master" (by far responsible for the most comments), as well as "Soup Nazi," "Rabbi Ricky," "Ralph Cohn," "Paladin," "Never Hillary Movement," "Barry Buddyphucker," "Vowel Movement," and "Typical Democrat Voter," plus several others, some of which appeared only for a comment or two, but which all shared a handful of IP addresses. So if you thought Friday's Trump NRA speech thread, or yesterday's Alex Jones/robots post, or yesterday's open thread had been invaded by a punch of really boring trolls, you were only half right: They were invaded by just one moran with a whole bunch of sockpuppets. Sadly, for all that work, and probably a couple hundred total comments, he really didn't have much to say. Here's a sampling of his very weaksauce trollery:
The judge in the Manafort debacle will shut Muller down and Mueller will shut the Dems down. Nirvana.
If you take out gun deaths in Chicago and Detroit, the USA has no gun problem.
You are reprobates. What’s worse is the authors of your articles, they are mental defects.
Sheeple get scalped.
Most posters at Media Matters are sexual deviates. It seems that most posters here are mentally ill. Very interesting indeed.
Are you liberal scumbags ready for the revolution?
If you take out gun deaths in Chicago and Detroit, the USA has no gun problem.
As we say, mostly just tiresome. But there were one or two interesting moments -- like when he agreed vehemently with himself, as in these parallel comments:
As "Bobby Williams": This site is funny as hell. Are you people real or bots?
As "Perfect Master": This site is composed of socks and bots.
That last one was kind of zen, really, since he made it so. Deep.
He also had a couple conversations with himself:
As “Dan Blout”: Who donates to this site?
As “Perfect Master”: Mostly Idiots
As “Walter Dunham”: John McCain must be getting ready to croak. Only the good die young.
As “Waldo Here”: Yeah, saw it--they are making plans for the big send off.
Our Man of a Thousand Trollfaces seemed especially interested in explaining the virtues of guns, as in this especially smart observation made by "Rabbi Ricky":
I got 6 million reasons to own my guns and they aren’t muskets. Oy.
Get it? Get it? Hitler took all the guns (he didn't), which is the only reason Europe's Jews couldn't fight off the entire Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS, which could apparently have been defeated by civilian rifles. If only someone had let the Allies know that, we could have put the entire defense budget into M1 rifles instead of wasting it on bombers and tanks and ships.
Happily, there was far better entertainment to be had this week out on Twitter, so screw that guy. While it's not properly a ShitFerBrains because none of this involved a reply to Yr Wonkette, it is at least tangentially related to a Wonkette story, in that it involves an Arizona state legislator we mentioned in our story about the end of the teacher strike in the Grand Canyon state. You may recall that, before the Arizona lege voted to raise teacher pay, Republican state Rep. Kelly Townsend introduced an amendment to crack down on all those teachers and their meddlesome striking. Her amendment, which didn't pass, was an effort to
make it illegal for teachers to espouse political beliefs at work, to require the attorney general to investigate teachers or schools that allow political activity and to bar schools from closing during a walkout.
While the teachers were still out, Townsend got into a discussion of how public education is all socialist and stuff, and she highlighted a tweet from somebody claiming that not only are public schools socialist, that's a good thing:
Or maybe. Public education is a socialist concept and after a lifetime of trying to get it to work within capitalism, we’d rather give democratic socialism a shot.
Teachers are progressive. We don’t need to be “tricked” into being progressive.— BLFC shows Fri@11pm/Sat@7pm (@peppercoyote) May 2, 2018
It's a huge over-generalization, but Townsend pounced on it as a dead giveaway to the teachers' true motivation. That point quickly got lost, though, as another commenter focused on a bit of trivia about that furreign socialist's's profile, which mentions that @peppercoyote is a "Musician at various furry and pop culture cons."
Imagine going to all this trouble to get elected to the state legislature of Arizona only to get logically destroyed by a furry
— VƎX is a Satyr (@andreuswolf) May 4, 2018
Leaving aside whether the socialist truly "destroyed" Townsend at all, her reply sent the conversation in a fine, weird new direction:
please educate me as to what a furry is.
— Rep. Kelly Townsend (@KellyTownsend11) May 4, 2018
Oh, dear. And Twitter did. Furry porn, definitions of the fandom from various sites, the inevitable "You could have just googled it," and the like. There was a bit of initial confusion after someone said "Ma'am, I'm not really sorry for what's about to happen to you" and Townsend thought it might be a threat, but as the thing went viral, there were some far clearer explanations. Sort of:
There was a movie where Michael Jordan played basketball with Bugs Bunny and there was a sexy lady rabbit in it and that's why my generation all want universal health care now.
— SAcums lut (@Atkinson72R) May 4, 2018
Voting age adults who watched Disney's animated Robin Hood and get together once per year to get drunk and argue about which character is cuter.
— ☄ S P A C E M O M ☄ STOP H.R. 2219 (@dogsokaywooof) May 4, 2018
Ever on the pulse of Twitter trends, the social media team at Dictionary.com came to her assistance:
Furries are fans of anthropomorphic animals. #AndSoMuchMore https: //t.co/j1ZtLVfzw9
— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) May 4, 2018
And we have to say, the full article was pretty helpful, with a capsule history of the phenomenon, and even a caution against the stereotype that it's all about dressing up like critters to have sex:
While a sexual aspect does exist in the fandom, it tends to be overly sensationalized and misrepresents the core values of what the fandom is about, which is community, having fun, and creativity. Furthermore, just about any fandom will contain sexual elements. A cursory search of the more popular fanfiction or art websites can easily reveal this.
Good warning, too, since quite a few furries trolled hard with decidedly Rule-34 offerings. Weirdly, Townsend took it all in stride, and decided she was fine with furries, and even with the X-rated stuff, because Free Speech. Within a few hours, Townsend was ready for furred base:
@antoniafarzan ready to join hahaha pic.twitter.com/1x4LpjGWMO
— Rep. Kelly Townsend (@KellyTownsend11) May 5, 2018
She wasn't even deterred by detractors telling her she shouldn't go there:
YES #NotThatStoopid .
— Rep. Kelly Townsend (@KellyTownsend11) May 5, 2018
Townsend even counter-trolled with Shrek. It's super-effective!
, I just found this original fursona. Am I absolved? pic.twitter.com/tBquajJwS4
— Rep. Kelly Townsend (@KellyTownsend11) May 5, 2018
Eventually, Townsend agreed with someone who said it was time for someone to draw Townsend her very own fursona, and she specified it had to be a lioness. This being the Interwebs, and a viral silly Friday thing, the call was soon answered:
. @KellyTownsend11 as a working artist I normally charge for my art but since you genuinely seemed curious about getting a fursona this is a freebie. Just remember the teachers are educational foundation for America's youth and they deserve better pay for their hard work. pic.twitter.com/ZXPxZ2LYuF
— ChocoPonyTarot@BLFC Dealer #104 Birthday (@Meta_Artist) May 5, 2018
So she's still rightwing, still no friend of public school funding, and still very much an Arizona Republican. But hey, she didn't hate on furries (and even better, seems disinclined to ally with Nazi furries, which yes, are a thing), so that's a nice thing that happened in our very strange world this weekend. Townsend has even added the furry version of herself to her campaign's Facebook page:
Get this: Her only reaction to some twerp who used her new fursona in an explicit porn comic was "#AlrightyThen." (It was very poorly drawn porn, too.)
She also made Teen Vogue, leading to a perfectly cromulent head-tilt from a local political reporter:
Guys, I'm worried about @KellyTownsend11
Old Kelly: I don't negotiate with socialists!
New Kelly: What's a furry? https: //t.co/GRK4b6adgc— BrahmResnik (@brahmresnik) May 5, 2018
Townsend clarified that she might associate with furries, but she wasn't sure she'd be negotiating with them. And she didn't even worry that her reputation would be harmed by hanging out with furverts:
I keep my hands clean so I can sit with the sinners just like Jesus did LOL LOL LOL
— Rep. Kelly Townsend (@KellyTownsend11) May 5, 2018
In conclusion, we would never vote for Kelly Townsend because her politics remain rightwing and bad for children and other living things. Being nice to furries -- and even deleting that "is this a threat?" tweet and replacing it with "best thing that's happened to me all week. I get it now" -- gives us some hope that even a hard right conservative can indeed have an open mind. Maybe one day she'll join paws with a svelte bunny or a butch otter and sing kumbayah.
Now, if we could just get Kelly Townsend to spend a week living with an underpaid teacher whose classroom is full of books that are falling apart...
Follow Doktor Zoom on Twitter
Most of his accusers have disappeared in a timely manner
“Subject of multiple Restraining Orders “