Jack Stuef jokes about retarded children. Very funny!

65 Comments

TJIC • Apr 20, 2011 @3:11 pm

Wonkette was sort of funny, but a little too mean for me 10 years ago.

5 years ago I checked in and saw that she'd gotten a bit meaner since then. That was the last time I checked in.

Today I saw this (via twitter). Holy crap, that's low.

One can hope that at some point she looks back and is embarrassed of her behavior, bc the alternative is even worse.
Patrick • Apr 20, 2011 @3:16 pm

Well it's some fuck named Jack Stuef. Wonkette's just his enabler.

I'm debating with myself whether to publish his real full name, residence address, and telephone number.
SPQR • Apr 20, 2011 @3:37 pm

I can't understand how people justify such hatred to themselves. Of someone that has never done them or their family any harm.

Something not right upstairs.
Patrick • Apr 20, 2011 @3:40 pm

Asshole views it as an attack on the mother, who exploits her child by blah blah blah.

What asshole doesn't realize, or perhaps he does and doesn't care because COMEDY ISN'T PRETTY, is that he's making fun of a handicapped child.

I now have his social security number, and I would publish it with all the rest, to show him that EDGY COMEDY COMES WITH CONSEQUENCES. So he could get the living shit beaten out of him just like GREAT EDGY COMEDIANS OF THE PAST.

But that thing would lower me.
Jess • Apr 20, 2011 @3:43 pm

It doesn't seem to be a popular article with advertisers. I hope the google cache keeps it up a long time, because it's such an effective response to all that "new civility" guff.
Mike • Apr 20, 2011 @4:03 pm

It's not just picking on a kid. It's normalizing the behavior. "All the cool kids make fun of 'retards.'"

Man, fuck that dude. He's an adult. He can fight back.

If I had his info, I'd post it without remorse or hesitation.
Jdog • Apr 20, 2011 @4:09 pm

Amazing, and I'm not sure why. Just when you think you've seen how deep depravity can go, somebody digs down and finds a whole motherlode beneath.

I'm sure she'll come up with something more perverted than making fun of a mother's love for her kid. But she's going to have to work hard at it.
Ken • Apr 20, 2011 @4:33 pm

Wow.

Yeah, that's notable hipster asshole douchebaggery even for them.

And the "we're just making fun of Palin" bit doesn't wash. They took some cheap and easy retards-are-funny swipes in there. Eleven-year-olds would have found those hilarious.

Repulsive.

And this guy's (unflattering) pic has been posted on twitter, Patrick — I think it might liven up the post.
Ken • Apr 20, 2011 @4:41 pm

Here. Jack Steuf.

"Honestly, Samwise, I think the neckbeard's not working for you."
Chris Berez • Apr 20, 2011 @4:43 pm

Have you guys checked out Wonkette's twitter page? It's truly staggering. After Papa John's pulled their advertisements from the site, they started attacking Papa John's, calling them a homophobic company that supports right wing extremists. They're also saying that child protective services should take Trig away.

You'd think that after getting the kind of response that that article provoked they would take a minute to reflect and actually pay attention to [i]why[/i] people are so pissed off. Instead, Jack Stuef only ups the viciousness and vitriol of his attacks.
Ken • Apr 20, 2011 @4:45 pm

Apparently it's OK to take advertising money from homophobes that support right wing extremists, until they disagree with you.
SPQR • Apr 20, 2011 @6:01 pm

The Mafia does not like it when you quit paying protection money.
SPQR • Apr 20, 2011 @6:04 pm

Another thought, if the point really was to attack Sarah Palin for Palin's actions, then that would mean that they have plenty of substantive things to use – arguably.

Instead, this is about some sort of cathartic release for them of their bile and hatred – there is nothing substantive about it at all. They are ugly to get a sick little thrill out of ugliness.

Which puts any of their claims of superiority over an asshole like me right out the window.
TJIC • Apr 20, 2011 @6:24 pm

> I now have his social security number, and I would publish it with all the rest

As the semi-recent recipient of an Internet Hate Fest, I came away from it just convinced that folks on the other side were a-holes. The few sane people who emailed me calmly did far more for their side than did the hundreds of name callers, anonymous letter writers, death threat makers, etc.

I know you already said that you won't release the info because it would lower you (agreed!), but don't release it because it serves no pragmatic purpose. The a-hole would be hardened into his position, if anything.
Grandy • Apr 20, 2011 @6:27 pm

I thought Wonkette was beyond shocking me at this point.
Windypundit • Apr 20, 2011 @6:59 pm

Releasing private information is only really fair game when it's one of those douchebags who doesn't understand why everybody is complaining about their loss of privacy. E.g. TSA leadership.
Ken • Apr 20, 2011 @7:06 pm

Layne writhes.
Scott Jacobs • Apr 20, 2011 @7:09 pm

I vote you release every bit of his info, and start a list of companies that have yet to pull ads from the Wonkette site, so we can start pointing out what they are subsidizing…
Scott Jacobs • Apr 20, 2011 @7:34 pm

Re: The update

Man, I really wish I was as good at making blog posts as Jack… If I were, I would do something about one of the Obama kids…

But I'm not, so I won't.
Fnord • Apr 20, 2011 @7:37 pm

Holy fuck is that pathetic.

Man, it would be tasteless and immature coming from a middle-schooler. An adult did this?!
Scott Jacobs • Apr 20, 2011 @7:52 pm

I dunno about adult…

He looks like a college student, frankly. The Georgetown sweatshirt ads to that.
Jennifer • Apr 20, 2011 @8:19 pm

I never thought I'd sympathize with Sarah Palin on anything, but Wonkette pushed me over the edge. Thanks a heap, asshole.
Doug • Apr 20, 2011 @10:31 pm

I have a special needs child and I think that thing of a man needs a brain operation to remove the parts that are making bad vile thoughts. And then he should be locked up.
Scott Jacobs • Apr 20, 2011 @11:11 pm

"What kind of mother does that?"

Heck, what kind of FATHER does that?

Am I the only one who remembers "Daddy, did you fix the hole yet" about the gulf oil spill?
Austin • Apr 21, 2011 @6:27 am

Perhaps the most telling part is found in this quote.

"Here’s Trig returning the favor, meeting another Down syndrome baby and immediately trying to lick it:"

It.
Dan Weber • Apr 21, 2011 @8:02 am

I have nothing to add, I just want to pile on. Ugh.
Edge • Apr 21, 2011 @8:11 am

Puerile, a smoking turd of a post…

I have fully functional members of society on both sides of my family, including in-laws, who apparently wouldn't measure up as anything other than targets of derision for this guy…

If you're going to attack Palin do it like a man – don't shoot at a kid who sure as hell didn't bring it on himself…
mojo • Apr 21, 2011 @8:13 am

Hey, whadda ya expect from a site whose main claim to fame used to be the maunderings of a part time hooker with an anal fetish? Class?
Scott Jacobs • Apr 21, 2011 @12:12 pm

Wonkette has apparently memory-holed the entire post….
Patrick • Apr 21, 2011 @12:21 pm

The memory will follow that neckbearded assclown Jack Stuef even if he moves back into his parents' house, I assure you.
Scott Jacobs • Apr 21, 2011 @12:35 pm

BACK into his parent's house?
Shylock Holmes • Apr 21, 2011 @3:25 pm

I guess I might be the only voice of dissent here. Not that the article wasn't reprehensible, and the guy a real piece of work. But I'm reluctant to pile on too much.

It's just that people say horribly nasty things all the time, but mostly it doesn't ruin the entire rest of their life. And broadly I think that's as it should be. Even if you think it's just in an absolute sense if this article ruins Jack Stuef's reputation, it's hard to see it as just compared with the lack of any consequence for all the other nasty stuff that people say to each other in private, in jokes, behind each others backs, all the time. The only difference here is internet.

And these stories always tend to go the same way. Person writes a blog post or uploads a video with something flippant and risque on an offensive subject. They're feeling on a roll, laughing to themselves and not thinking too hard. They're forgetting that all the tone and inflection they have in their head doesn't get translated in writing. And they press 'post'. And suddenly it goes viral, they get a torrent of hate, and they're forced to belatedly reflect on how the article would appear to someone who didn't find the joke funny. But by that point it's too late. They can't take it back, the internet never forgets, and that's all people will see when they google their name, forever.

I've never written anything that bad in a public forum, but I've sure sent emails I regretted, often following exactly the first half of the script above.

Does writing a post like this make you an insensitive d*ckhead? Absolutely. Is the post substantially more nasty than civilised people would think, even in jest? Sure. But should it ruin your whole life? To me, no. This guy seems like a piece of crap, but I still feel a bit sorry for him, the same way I did for Alexandra Wallace.
Patrick • Apr 21, 2011 @3:34 pm

Shylock, you seem to think that Jack Stuef is just some nobody writing comments while drunk on the internet, an Alexandra Wallace, if you will.

You forget that he writes for a site so large it gets (or got) ad revenue from Papa Johns. He isn't some ditz saying something stupid for an audience he thinks is confined to friends, who'll understand that he doesn't really mean it, who'll get the joke.

HE GOT PAID TO WRITE THIS SHIT. It's HIS FUCKING JOB to write CRUEL STORIES MOCKING CHILDREN WITH DOWN'S SYNDROME ON THEIR BIRTHDAY. He's the head writer for a blog FAR larger than yours or mine.

He lives by the sword.

And he can damned well die by the sword.
Shylock Holmes • Apr 21, 2011 @4:00 pm

Fair point, Patrick – deliberately writing nasty stuff for a living is different from screwing it up and posting something that got spread much further than you intended. I'd mentally put it more in the latter category, but maybe that's the wrong way to think about it.

So perhaps my remarks don't really apply in this case. But my sense is that most people on the internet don't seem to make the distinction that you do between the two categories. In other words, Alexandra Wallace gets it in the neck in the same way Jack Stuef does.

I also wonder if the main impact of this kind of reaction will be to just make people even more reluctant than they already are to publish anything on the internet under their own name.
Chris Berez • Apr 21, 2011 @4:46 pm

Apparently advertisers are abandoning Wonkette en masse. I think the count is around 20 now, maybe more. I don't know how much ad revenue Wonkette was taking in, but it sure seems that Jack Stuef just managed to drive off a significant amount of it. Of course,Ken Layne's actions hardly helped matters either.

I don't know if it makes a difference to them. I certainly hope it does. Fuck 'em.
Ken • Apr 21, 2011 @4:59 pm

Shylock, the point you make about internet consequences is one we've talked about here before. Take Alex Kochno, for instance.

I think Patrick's correct that this is the case of a professional asshole thoughtlessly or deliberately pushing too far. That gets treated differently than a mere amateur asshole, like me. (And God knows both Patrick and I have pushed the limits of taste on occasion — but nothing, I think, as mean spirited to the powerless as this.)
Scott Jacobs • Apr 21, 2011 @5:38 pm

"a mere amateur asshole, like me."

Now now, Ken… Don't you go selling yourself short…
SPQR • Apr 21, 2011 @6:55 pm

Chris has an argument that I won't call silly or wrong. Sometimes people do write stupid shit and it should not ruin their life. But a couple of things mitigate against that explanation in this case. One noted above by Patrick is that he was paid to write this crap.

The second is that it wasn't a one-off in that people have been expressing their contempt and hatred for Sarah Palin by attacking her kids for quite a long time now. They did not accidentally find the first mine in what looked like an empty minefield. Anyone with half a brain should have noticed that the stuff was getting old and that the answer was to retreat from the brink rather than see how they could push the limits more.

The pile of vile stuff said about Sarah Palin and her children did not need yet another turd of a posting and Steuf and Layne should have known it.
SPQR • Apr 21, 2011 @6:56 pm

On the question of pulling the post, I was amused to see that Layne has lofty principles that last a double handful of minutes at most.
Ken • Apr 21, 2011 @6:59 pm

While we're at it, fuck the Onion for this.
SPQR • Apr 21, 2011 @7:09 pm

Hmmm, Ken, that Onion piece did not generate much outrage with me. I'm going to run it by a friend of mine with two autistic boys and see his reaction.
Ken • Apr 21, 2011 @7:14 pm

SPQR, consider it in the context of this and this.
SPQR • Apr 21, 2011 @7:49 pm

Well, that's interesting, Ken. Those two links did offend me, while the first you linked from the Onion did not so much. And I'm trying to figure out if I can articulate why. So far failing to do so.

A friend of mine with autistic children told me that he found the first you provided to be unfunny but in a lame rather than offensive way. I'll pass on sharing the latter two links with him.

I'm going to have to think about why I reacted differently among the three pieces.
Scott Jacobs • Apr 21, 2011 @8:32 pm

See, I found the "Very Special Forces" one freaking hysterical, while I found the other two to be – at best – very, VERY questionable…

But the point is that out-right mocking a very young person with Downs Syndrome is just stupid. In my mind it's one thing to poke fun at people that don't exist (the Onion articles) and another to do it to a real, actual person…
Jack • Apr 22, 2011 @6:43 am

Isn't the difference between reactions to The Onion and Jack Stuef's piece sort of the difference between say, Chris Rock and Ann Coulter? One is an unapolgietic humor comedian, for which we completely expect unPC abuse, the other is social/politicalal commentary that uses ostensible humor/snark in furtherence of the narrative. They latter my try to use the "just an entertainer" excuse when they say something aggregious, but they usually don't get away with it exceptby the truly ideologically blinkered fanbase, and even there conflicts exist.
Svi • Apr 22, 2011 @8:06 am

Nothing should be off limits to humor. Of course if you are going to make fun of a retarded 3 year old, you should make sure youre funny.

This neckbearded ginger is not, so screw him.
Dan Weber • Apr 22, 2011 @9:17 am

On doxing:

Actually, I do have something to add. Don't dox him, even though he deserves it.

There will be another Internet Mob. When it starts you won't be able to stop it, but if you tell people now to stop and calm down before they start doxing, you might give it some pause.

On the repurcussions:

I've talked before in the comment section on this blog about how social repurcissons of unpopular speech aren't always good; they mostly depend on the popular viewpoint being good itself, which can lead to a vicious cycle where people are afraid to point out problems in the popular viewpoint so they won't be harassed.

But for some reason I don't seem to mind advertisers fleeing Wonkette. They paid this guy to post this. I have write permissions to my company's blog, and I'm aware that power brings responsibility. I still usually run the post by someone else before pulling the trigger, just as good practice. If I want to be an assclown, well, I've got my own blog for that.
Patrick • Apr 22, 2011 @10:05 am

Dan if I wasn't angry enough to do it Wednesday I'm surely not going to do it now.
Rick C • Apr 22, 2011 @11:33 am

As the father of a mildly autistic 12yo boy, I found the train video pretty funny.
Rick C • Apr 22, 2011 @11:36 am

As for the other pieces, come on! Look at that "short bus" C-130. I don't care who you are, that's funny right there.

More seriously, if we're going to condemn stuff like that, we have to also condemn things like the "Petarded" episode of Family Guy, which made some of the same jokes in the "Very Special Forces" article.
Brian Dunbar • Apr 22, 2011 @12:10 pm

I myself thought, when I first read it, that The Onion's 'Special Forces' bit was funny not because it made fun of the handicapped but because it made fun of the Army.
Jennifer • Apr 22, 2011 @2:41 pm

More seriously, if we’re going to condemn stuff like that, we have to also condemn things like the “Petarded” episode of Family Guy, which made some of the same jokes in the “Very Special Forces” article.

Except that "Family Guy" makes offensive humor about everything and everybody, with no pretense that it's actually offering insightful political commentary.

As an example: I paid for college by working as a stripper, but was not offended by the FG episode where a congressman killed one, and as the end of the episode Peter spoke to the audience and said something like "Killing strippers is bad, and also unnecessary since they're already dead inside." But if a political blogger (left- or right-wing, doesn't matter) made the same joke on his blog, I'd find that extremely offensive — yes, I expect political bloggers to meet higher standards of behavior and commentary than Peter Griffin. Also, in FG one of the main points is that Peter and his friends are utterly loathsome people; it's not Seth MacFarlane's intention for anyone to watch the show and think "Yeah, I want to be like them." Depending on the needs of the episode, Peter & Co. can be racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, monstrously sexist, appallingly rude to the disabled; Quagmire is a serial rapist and kidnapper; Peter and Lois' treatment of Meg is outright child abuse, and so forth.
Scott Jacobs • Apr 22, 2011 @2:45 pm

I'm trying REALLY hard to not say anything that will make Jennifer want to cause me harm…
Grandy • Apr 25, 2011 @7:14 am

Also, FG remains too unfunny overall to care about (it can be hilarious at times, but it is very uneven).
Rick C • Apr 25, 2011 @1:38 pm

The perpetually offended will be offended by FG regardless of the mitigating factors Jennifer mentions, which is why I chose that as an example.
Rick C • Apr 25, 2011 @1:39 pm

Hm. "Your comment is awaiting moderation"

Am I being moderated on purpose, or is that an automatic filter doing that?
Ken • Apr 25, 2011 @1:53 pm

Either:

1) We singled you out for abuse because of our inability to endure dissenting viewpoints, or

2) The Worpress settings we use automatically capture posts from new visitors (those who have not had a comment approved before with that name-email combination) and holds them for moderation, and for some reason the software treated you as a new commenter (possibly because you commented from a different IP, or used a different icon, or something).

Take your pick.
Scott Jacobs • Apr 25, 2011 @4:19 pm

Ken leaves out option 3) For the fuck of it.
Ken • Apr 25, 2011 @5:42 pm

The preferred term is "lulz."
Xenocles • Apr 25, 2011 @5:55 pm

I submit that the Very Special Forces piece might be funny if you see it as making fun of the common euphemism; the idea that leaders could be so confused by the muddled language that they make the mistake of sending "special" people into irregular combat has a fair amount of potential.
Ken • Apr 25, 2011 @5:57 pm

Well, to be honest, defense lawyers make fun of federal agents on that basis sometimes. "Agent Smith, in fact, you're a . . . Special Agent, aren't you?"
SPQR • Apr 25, 2011 @7:11 pm

Why do I get the feeling, every time I look at Steuf's photo, that I want to beat him up for his lunch money?
Scott Jacobs • Apr 26, 2011 @12:02 am

"Well, to be honest, defense lawyers make fun of federal agents on that basis sometimes. “Agent Smith, in fact, you’re a . . . Special Agent, aren’t you?”"

Well, it isn't like the feds don't give you frequent cause to suspect they suffer from some level of developmental impairment…
Rick C • Apr 26, 2011 @4:42 pm

"Take your pick."

No, that's too much like work. I'll just assume you're prejudiced against my icon.
Ken • Jun 13, 2011 @6:42 pm

Someone just visited this post by Google searching for "retarded kids jokes." I think they left disappointed.

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