NBA PR man admits he's anonymous commenter
The Golden State Warriors don't play defense--except, perhaps, when it comes to the indefensible.
Please imagine you're a disgruntled Warriors fan. For two seasons, everything seemed to suddenly and strangely go well. After what felt like 20 seasons of desperation, playoffs were reached. No. 1 seeds were defeated.
Then, for reasons that seem all too evident to those who give the Warriors money (disclosure: myself included), there is a handbasket drifting downward from purgatory with a large Warriors logo printed on its side.
Naturally, fans voice their views on various sites. One of which is WarriorsWorld.net. Much of the commentary lately has been of a negative nature.
One shining beacon of light was offered by "Flunkster Dude." Commenting on a season-ticket holder conference call hosted by General Manager Larry Riley, President Robert Rowell and TV play-by-play man Bob Fitzgerald, he wrote: "I actually enjoyed the call and appreciate their honesty."
Which not so many other commenters did. Even fewer do now, as the WarriorsWorld.net chaps traced the IP back to a certain office. You're there already, aren't you? Yes, to the office of the Golden State Warriors.
Flunkster Dude is, in fact, Flackster Dude. Real name, Raymond Ridder, PR man for the Golden State Warriors.
The journalist who published the revelation this week, Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News, received a very quaint response from Ridder: "It was 100% me. And I'll take 100% responsibility, if anybody thinks I did anything wrong. It was completely on my own. I've never been told to do anything by anybody here. It was just me."
Naturally, I enjoyed his response and appreciated his honesty. Especially the part about never having been told to do anything by anybody.
However, Flunkster Dude was not done. He continued to offer his honesty in a most disarming way: "It was nothing malicious at all. I just wanted to get the conversation going in a positive direction-I thought we had a good conference call, I had some good conversations with some season-ticket-holders, then I got to my office and I looked on the internet and all I saw was negative comments, complaints, nothing positive."
So the obvious step for a fine PR chappy was to hide that he was a fine PR chappy, in the bizarre hope that, by leaving a positive comment, all like-thinking, enlightened fans, marveling at the Warriors 29 wins last season, would emerge from beneath some unseen parquet and toss more garlands on top of his.
Now here's the fun part. (You thought there wouldn't be a fun part?) This doesn't appear to be the first time Flunkster Dude has flacked his wings and flown.
He admitted to Kawakami that he had posted four other bonmots on WW.net. All, you will be overwhelmed to hear, were dunks on behalf of management.
One was even a negative comment about one of the better (but not, sadly, better-dressed) journalists who follow the Warriors, a tall man who plays a mean game of pickup (he's played and squashed some friends of mine), Matt Steinmetz.
You might think that Flunkster Dude has flunked the very first test of social media.
You might think that someone who posts anonymously about honesty, when himself being just slightly less than entirely honest about his interest in the matter, might just think about a career in politics.
However, I might think that you have never been a fan of the most maddening, ridiculous, disquieting, arrogant, ignorant and, just occasionally, sickeningly lovable mess that is the Golden State Warriors.
I will not hear anyone criticize their sublime fish and chips, though.
(Disclosure and, um, an ad: I appear regularly on Patrick Mauro's nationally syndicated show on Sports Byline USA, Sundays at 11 p.m. Honestly.)
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
What shall we do? CRY!
From this day on we must enact a law. Thou shall not say anything positive about the companies they work for - Negative comments are okay and in fact encouraged though!
Why shouldn't people working for other corporations do the same? Honesty and truth have nothing to do with business and marketing. Only money counts.
So 90% of the computing community must be paid off right?
For that matter, if you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Riley, it reads like a press release that a low-on-the-ethics-scale PR flack would write.
Sic 'em, Kawakami!! It'll annoy all those Merc readers who can't stand you!!...
- by baconstang May 24, 2009 12:34 AM PDT
- What! OMG, you mean Microsoft isn't the only one who pays trolls?
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- by gertruded May 24, 2009 5:18 AM PDT
- I find it very hard to believe that Microsoft would stoop so low as to actually pay people to support their view on any internet forum.
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- by dcardozo May 25, 2009 10:45 AM PDT
- Well, they don't call it that way.
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- by monkeyfun14 May 25, 2009 2:57 PM PDT
- @dcardozo
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(16 Comments)NO company is that bad. Paying people to do that could be considered dishonest.
MS pays to several people that support their view in several internet forums, including this one.
If you ask them, they don't pay people for supporting their view. They would say they pay them as regular employees.
They're hardly the only ones that do that, other companies do the same, just not as much as MS.
And of course, there's nothing illegal in doing that.
And do you have a source?