Yesterday, I was reminded of a Dodger game I went to when I was about ten years old. As a tomboy playing baseball at the time, I took the game very seriously. So, when the guy next to me was screaming at Steve Garvey about his wife cheating on him, or leaving, or something, I was a bit thrown. I received clarification from my dad who informed me of their recent split and quickly went from confused to appalled. This guy was a Dodger fan, so why was he being so mean and what did Steve Garvey's wife have to do with baseball? The remainder of the game I gave the man dirty looks and plotted to "accidentally" spill my soda on him and all of the things I should say to give him a piece of my ten year old outraged mind. "What do you know? You're a crappy fan! You know I could strike you out, right?"
These feelings came up for me again last week when I saw comments on Craig Newmark's Facebook page post that he was writing checks to four veteran's organizations totaling $100,000. His craigconnects.org Veterans and Military Families Grant Challenge had ended and he was sending grants to The Bob Woodruff Foundation, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Intrepid Museum Foundation, and Blue Star Families.
LIke that day at Dodger Stadium, most of Craig's Facebook "fans" were cheering, but not all of them. There were the "c'mon you can give more, you can do more!" Really, he doesn't HAVE to do anything and he does quite a lot in addition to this. And "you should apologize to the military families when they can't post a bike they need to sell so they can feed their kids" (speaking to a Craigslist spam/flagging process.) Seriously? What does their free Craigslist post have to do with him giving $100,000 in grants? She was obviously flagged and removed on craiglist.org at some point. I was happy to see that many others shared their thoughts with the hecklers as I was unable to do at the Dodger game.
Unfortunately, I've seen many other ridiculous portrayals of this "evil Craig guy." Before he took on all of these devilish roles, he put a few things together online to help his friends connect with each other and various events in San Francisco. This eventually became craigslist and now helps many. He is an advisor and board member of many nonprofit organizations and started Craigslist Foundation and craigconnects.org. This "evil" man supports veterans, education, volunteerism, open government and many more including…journalistic integrity and fact checking. Hmmm….wonder why he's passionate about fact checking?!?!
Bottom line, to all of you who sit in the cheap seats and judge, or fan a page when you're not a fan just so you can gripe, please don't. If you used the time you took making your crappy comment into doing something nice, the world would be a much better place. Oh, and "What do you know? You're a crappy fan! You know I could strike you out, right?"
