While Hurricane Sandy was lashing New York, New Jersey, and points south, north, and inland, a known jerk who winsomely called himself ComfortablySmug was posting bad news on Twitter.
First he said all subway lines would close due to flooding. Which could have been just predicting something he considered obvious. Then he tweeted that all power was being shut off in Manhattan. False, alarming, but not completely bizarre. Then he tweeted “BREAKING: Governor Cuomo has been trapped in Manhattan. Has been taken to a secure shelter.” Untrue, weird, and scary. A few minutes later: “BREAKING: Confirmed flooding on NYSE. The trading floor is flooded under more than 3 feet of water.”
Even I, sadly out of touch with the twitmosphere, saw the NY Stock Exchange information repeated (probably in part because people couldn’t resist the chance to make mordant bailout jokes).
These lies made the disastrous effects of Sandy seem even worse, even more frightening. ComfortablySmug could get away with it because even though his online identity was well established, his real identity wasn’t known. Or, he thought he could get away with it.
Jack Stuef, of BuzzFeed, very quickly matched censored photos posted by ComfortablySmug with uncensored photos he found elsewhere, and determined that ComfortablySmug was Shashank Tripathi, 29, and that Tripathi, a hedge fund analyst, was the campaign manager for Christopher Wight, a [Republican] candidate for New York’s 12th Congressional District.
Stuef telephoned Tripathi, and Tripathi, suddenly UncomfortablyStung, hung up. Stuef went public. By the next day, a horrified congressional candidate Wight had disowned him and Tripathi had tweeted an apology. Alas, he didn’t start it with “BREAKING:”.
Here’s what he said:
I wish to offer the people of New York a sincere, humble and unconditional apology.
During a natural disaster that threatened the entire city, I made a series of irresponsible and inaccurate tweets.
While some would use the anonymity and instant feedback of social media as an excuse, I take full responsibility for my actions. I deeply regret any distress or harm they may have caused.
I have resigned from the congressional campaign of Christopher Wight, effective immediately. Wight is a candidate with the ideas, philosophy and leadership skills to make New York a better place and who will be an outstanding advocate for the people of the 12th Congressional District. It is my sincere hope that the voters of New York will see him based on his merits alone, and not my actions of the last 24 hours.
Again, I offer my sincere apologies.
Uh huh, Let’s see, first sentence says it’s an apology. Second sentence describes what he did. I would describe it in stronger language. You can call a flat-out vicious lie “inaccurate,” and it’s not wrong, but it doesn’t tell the full story.
Third sentence is a lulu. Some people would make excuses – especially this excuse and that excuse – but not me! I am too noble, too conscientious to use this excuse and that excuse, in fact I take complete responsibility, not falling back on those excuses I mention.
Fourth sentence: I am so responsible that I regret any distress and harm they may have caused, if indeed they did, not that I know anything about that.
Then he resigns – I’m pretty sure he was already fired by then. Then a sentence of boilerplate about the extremely upset candidate for whom he so recently worked. Then a perfectly good sentence about how he hopes people won’t blame the candidate for his misdeeds, wait no, “actions.”
Then a last sentence of apology.
Something big that’s missing here is an explanation. Not every apology requires an explanation, but this one does. Why did he do this? What was he thinking?
It’s hard to see how Tripathi might have thought this would benefit his candidate. On the other hand this is the campaign that thinks you find it inspirational to watch a video of “Team Wight” volunteers making “7,000” (annoying unsolicited) “calls per day” so who knows.
Probably he was just being MeanlySmug and imagining power over foolish and gullible lesser humans. NYC officials are making noises about prosecuting him, though it’s not clear for what. Gloating’s not a crime.
Checking in from cousin’s apartment (’cause mine still has no power or Internet or cell service or heat) to say WE ARE NOT AMUSED.
Its a power thing. Let’s see how many gullible fools I can trick with a few mere key strokes. I am sure he was gleeful that some of the things he posted were picked up by others and passed around. “Oh boy! See how powerful I am. thousands of people believed my lies!”
Another example of just because you can do something, does not mean you should.
Its okay to think of these things in a black humor sort of way, you can even giggle at your own cleverness if you are that amused. Just DON’T hit the send button.
A hedge fund analyst. I wonder how his clients feel about this.
I believe he’s sort of a freelance hedge fund analyst — BuzzFeed says he used to blog for Stone Street Advisors, a hedge fund consultancy — but that ended before these events.
There’s a lot of explanation in his nom. ‘Comfortably”, in this context, means something considerably nastier than usual for this innocent word. “Smug” is just fine.