"'Say it with me people. Pulitzer. Motherf***ing. Prize'"

January 19, 2016 2:59 PM

Kevin Dawes: searching for a missing American in Syria. A young American man and sometime SomethingAwful goon, self-taught as a medic and aspiring to journalism, maxes out his credit cards and heads for Syria, on his own. His contacts and friends increasingly fear he is mentally ill. The last report of him is from 2013. (GQ, 1/15/2016)

Kevin Dawes on an NPR broadcast, in 2011.

posted by Countess Elena (17 comments total)

But what happened to Kevin Dawes is also a cautionary tale of geekery gone wrong.

I wouldn't blame geekery for this tragedy.
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 3:13 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

His behaviour echoes that of Nick Berg. Here's hoping he does not end up with a similar fate.
posted by Fizz at 3:21 PM on January 19, 2016

Yeahhh, geekery gone wrong is why I, a 40 year old man, might have a lego train table in my basement. This isn't just geekery.
posted by boo_radley at 3:26 PM on January 19, 2016 [36 favorites]

Fascinating. "Geekery gone wrong" isn't accurate, but see where the sentiment comes from- I kept feeling like the way he acted or the things he did were kind of logical, up to the point where the really really weren't. And who knew you could just head to Syria and mess around just because (please don't)!

I kind of thought this article was leading up to how the author was working to bring Dawes home, or how the author had decided to back away. Instead it kind of trails off at the end?
posted by Secretariat at 4:06 PM on January 19, 2016

Interesting article, I came upon the Caro story myself a year ago or so? My understanding was that he'd been killed, I didn't realize that there was a thought he was still alive.
posted by Carillon at 4:48 PM on January 19, 2016

Well, that's a creative new way for mental illness to kill you. Still, at least there's a chance he did some good before he probably was killed. Or maybe he's still alive, I suppose, but the odds aren't very good at this point. Even if he wasn't intentionally killed by his captors, I wouldn't expect anyone to survive this long in those conditions.
posted by Mitrovarr at 5:12 PM on January 19, 2016

I found the article pretty hard to follow. Dawes is somewhat of a sympathetic character if mainly because of his mental health issues.

Dawes had many crazy delusions about the CIA, he agreed, but he and his colleagues had just ignored them - he was entirely dependable in a tight spot and his heart was in the right place. "It was a very rare act to pay everything you have to give to people, all your expenses. He gave a lot of his money away for free."

If he is still alive, we should do what we can to bring him home.
posted by AugustWest at 5:14 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I, erm, my Goon friend, ummm, told me he remembers when this went down. The Middle East has not been kind to goons.
posted by Samizdata at 6:31 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Never thought I'd see an article about Caro, much less on Metafilter. Everybody was trying to tell him not to do it, or just calling him an idiot who was going to get killed, and nobody was surprised when he vanished. I wish he'd listened to Brown Moses, who did everything he could.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:44 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Folk Song Army just deployed another one.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:09 PM on January 19, 2016

The Middle East has not been kind to goons.

No indeed. Then as a final indignity, Michael Bay had to go and make a movie about Vile Rat.
posted by fifthrider at 9:58 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Middle East has not been kind to goons.

Can you expand on this? It's a part of the internet I have not followed.
posted by OmieWise at 6:15 AM on January 20, 2016

OmieWise: "The Middle East has not been kind to goons.

Can you expand on this? It's a part of the internet I have not followed."

As mentioned above, Sean Smith, aka Vilerat, was a goon who died in the Benghazi attack.
posted by Samizdata at 8:36 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Pope Guilty: "Never thought I'd see an article about Caro, much less on Metafilter. Everybody was trying to tell him not to do it, or just calling him an idiot who was going to get killed, and nobody was surprised when he vanished. I wish he'd listened to Brown Moses, who did everything he could."

Yeah, because we all know the best way to get a goon to do something is tell them not to, according to, ummm, my Goon friend.
posted by Samizdata at 8:37 AM on January 20, 2016

Goon is not a phrase I've heard in this context, and i don't feel particularly internet naive. I know Something Awful but i'm not a regular. Are there a lot of you? Do I need to be worried?
posted by trif at 9:27 AM on January 20, 2016

Back in the day (through about 2003 or 2004?) one of the regular features on SA's front page was the Awful Link of the Day, which would highlight some particularly horrible, ridiculous, or Geocitiestastic website. This was also the era of guestbooks on websites, and a lot of ALoDs would have guestbooks, which would rapidly fill up with SA users and readers posting some often horrible nonsense. The operator of one site featured as an ALoD demanded that Lowtax call off his goons, and the name stuck.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:53 AM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

As mentioned above, Sean Smith, aka Vilerat, was a goon who died in the Benghazi attack.

I was half tempted to see the Bay movie just because it would probably be my last and only opportunity to see a noted SomethingAwful user depicted in a movie, or at least a movie where he was not the one committing the atrocity. Even so, I can wait for TV.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:09 AM on January 20, 2016