September 10, 2001

4:42 PM

And the fans of Suck did rejoice with much rejoicing.Tim Cavanaugh writing for OJR in a hit-and-run-ish commentary of our old favorite CAPAlert and the impact--or lack thereof--of hoaxes online, Which raises a question: Who's smarter? The people who assume (correctly) that a wacky site is real or the ones who suspect (falsely but understandably) that it must be too odd to be real?
posted by th3ph17 (6 comments total)

I exchanged some email with the CAPalert guy a few years ago, attempting to convey myself as a devout christian that found his website's existence on the evil, pornographic world wide web more offensive than anything he had to review (I posed as a friend, borrowing another friend's email account and stated that whether or not to use the internet was a popular topic of debate between me and my friend).

I was trying to draw him into an argument, get him on the defensive, where he had to justify his reasons for using the internet when most religious people at the time hated it and wrote it off as a pedophile's paradise. But he basically said something like "the internet is not all bad and I'm doing my best to keep it clean."

Not the comedic response I was looking for. Oh well.
posted by mathowie at 5:01 PM on September 10, 2001

Now let's see if we can't find someplace for Heather Havrilsky to start writing again!
posted by Steven Den Beste at 5:36 PM on September 10, 2001

i've always found the Guestbook to be the place to look for evidence of hoaxism vs. closedmindedism.

Landover, BonsaiKitty etc...have great evidence that it is a parody in the guestbooks.

steven...i had heard a couple of weeks ago that Tim C. had found a new home of sorts with OJR and that projects with the also-great Heather Havrilsky are in the works. I love ojr.
posted by th3ph17 at 5:42 PM on September 10, 2001

I thought Landover was a rather obvious parody...

CAPAlert has bestowed some fun times among my friends and I. What we can understand is why he would watch movies that he KNOWS he won't like (South Park, Natural Born Killers). He's probably seen more nudity in movies then most of us... one has to wonder if he's doing this for some kind of weird pleasure in the back of his mind. At one point in time, I remember him saying he was going to review Clockwork Orange. Sadly, he has yet to touch it.
posted by geoff. at 6:23 PM on September 10, 2001

While it's fun to ridicule those whose beliefs we don't necessarily agree with, I believe that quite a bit of respect should be given to the "CAPalert guy" given the following line in his "about" page:

For six years my wife and I have given His care to fifteen foster children ranging from two days old to 14 years old.

I'd imagine that's much more than most of the people around us (including us?) do for others on a day to day basis.
posted by milnak at 12:46 AM on September 11, 2001

Sometimes "His Care" can be pretty tough love. Maybe this guy isn't like that; I hope not.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 5:29 AM on September 11, 2001