I didn’t really want to wade into the I hate David Dellifield. The one from Ada, Ohio. blog scandel, but I gues I am going to.
I have been reading some of the comments over at Matt’s Life Without Pants blog around his post “Rule #176 of Being a Blogger: Learn How to Take Criticism” I have also read some of the comments on the original blog post. Personally I did not see any reason for me to comment on such childish actions.
But I am going to comment, the saga continues….
Penelope Trunk sent out a Tweet stating:
“No school today and the nanny’s on vacation. A whole day with the kids gets so boring: all intergalactic battles and no intellectual banter.”
When this flashed up, my first thought was “If her kids knew she thought they were boring, what would they think of their mother?”
David Dellifield was quick to respond:
“@penelopetrunk sorry your kids are a burden, send them to OH, we’ll enjoy them for who they are”
This is how Penelope reacted to the tweet:
“Like many people who are total assholes online, David’s contact info was easy to find. I called him at work, because, big surprise, he is not a stay-at-home dad talking about how everyone should love parenting. He is a dad who is not home all day talking about how everyone should love being home all day with their kids.
There was no answer at his work. But I noted the number so I could ruin his life there if I ever felt like he needed to be taught a lesson.
Then I called David Dellifield’s house. I thought maybe his wife would answer and I could ask her if she knows that her husband is emailing other women to encourage them to send more kids to his wife to take care of. All day.
There was no answer. Maybe by then he had alerted his wife that he is being pursued by a psycho who maybe will kill her kids or maybe will kill him. Maybe they will never answer their phone again.”
Check out the rest of the post here
There have been many commentators taking sides and crying over whether or not the response was required, if David had done anything wrong, if he called out PT as a bad mother. How dare he be such a Jerk an say that…
As I said before my first thought was “If her kids knew she thought they were boring, what would they think of their mother?” Penelope explains that parenting is hard and that parents should be able to vent their frustrations somewhere, this I agree with, however if you are looking for sympathy no doubt you will get it. However when you have 11,000 followers you are going to get some people who are going to call you out.
I am not going to comment on her reaction and subsequent actions that she took, I don’t think I can add value to what is obviously bad behaviour.
I am going to comment on the many comments talking about how Penelope will be laughing about the amount of publicity she is receiving about how all publicity is good publicity, in some ways I agree with this; However
I don’t know if you can actually expect to gain long term readers from bad publicity.
In the blogsphere it is very easy to exercise your right to read someones blog. I was an avid Penelope Trunk fan, I thought her writing was fantastic and very informative, it reads like an HR blog mixed with Sex and the City.
Now I have exercised my right to not read what Penelope has to say. Her reaction has not added any value to my life, and I can’t see Penelope’s blog doing that anymore either.
Twitter Updates
I’m glad your response went this direction – is bad PR still good PR? That’s debatable – I’m sure (typically) she does not care about the negative publicity she receives – because typically there are so many more people praising her. This situation is a little different – yes, there are still many people who are praising PT, calling her ‘brilliant’ but there are many more (I think) in this instance, who really lost faith in her, and honestly are a little freaked out by her reaction (myself included). My question is – is she writing for the good of the community, or is she writing for the sake of controversy. Yes, people who write controversial topics will stand out, they’ll get the attention, it will spark discussion – but it’s not the meaningful long-lasting impact I strive to leave with my blog. I may never be a PTrunk-like blogger, but I can hold my own, and I don’t write about sex and erratic behavior to get people to notice me.
I guess I’ll say, ‘to each his own’ – there are many different tactics you can use while blogging – what do you think her angle is here? Overall or specifically with this post?
Well, to be honest this is a couple of Americans am i right? It would prob help if i read the whole article, but why the BEEP do poeple care what this woman in america said about her kids. This is like debating whether red roads are better than black roads., they all have the same purpose. This is america, somebody saying they think their kids are boring, which is probably a better acessment of themselves, and creating a who-ha (always wanted to use that word) about it when there are a trillion things worse going on in the country yet this gets more attention than it deserves. End of bitch.
@Matt – Specifically with this post I think PT was writing it for none of the reasons you have suggested.
She was writing it for herself, to show that she is the Big Woman On Campus. Everyone who writes a blog is a little self-promotional, but this was blatant “don’t fuck with me or I’ll crush you” type reaction.
If PT was using controversy to spark discussion then I don’t think it sparked the kind of discussion that she was expecting. At a reach, I think her aim was to provoke a discussion around parents and their ability to vent frustrations without fear of ridicule.
Overall PT does uses a little shock and awe with her entire blog, so I guess this post was along the same lines. But I still think she was writing this for herself and not her readership.
@B Sorry B, not quite sure about the roads analogy??
I agree that there are bigger thing to worry about in the grand scheme of things, but relatively as a newsworthy event this is probably equal to the RBNZ dropping rates or John Key getting elected as PM, in the world’s eyes (ie not even a blip on Reuters)
I know that you are a loyal reader of my blog (and close friend) but this was a bit of a hot topic in the so called blog sphere over the last couple of days, PT used her massive influence in Social Media to ridicule a guy who just made a remark, she acted like a schoolyard bully and heaps of people agreed with her actions, so I’m just commenting on this to give another perspective.
I agree that this post was very self-centered but I still believe at it’s CORE, underneath it all, the intentions were to spark discussion on parenting and societies judgmental nature. With that being said – her point was totally off the mark and the topic was clouded by anger – it ended up just being a public display of revenge. But I still think she’s overall pleased with the extremely high involvement and PR (even the bad PR) that was generated here.
I’ll stick up for Penelope here. Being a mom is hard. I’ve found a small circle of moms I can vent to. Penelope sees her blog readers as her family, and her style is to say what’s on her mind without apology. Criticizing a woman for speaking her mind and saying how she feels on her own blog? I say, “you go, girl.”
Hi Julie, thanks for stopping by!
This is why I didn’t originally feel the need to comment, the mother’s job is the hardest, and unfortunatly I’ll never be a mother so I can’t comment on the rights and wrongs.
Everybody needs to vent! Mum’s need to vent, my Mum went to a coffee group when we were little to vent, dad’s need to vent (Pub maybe?) even I vent (sometimes via this blog) and yes she is entitled to say whats on her mind, none of this is in question. What I wanted to comment on is, firstly, when you vent not everyone agrees with you, I find that family members are the first ones to tell you to pull your head in!
More importantly using your considerable notoriety and standing in a certain domain (Social Media) to exact “revenge” on somebody that has no way of defending themselves through similar medium, is something that is left for the school yard bully.
I’m losing a little more respect for PT with each new post. She posted her opinion in a highly public forum, one which encourages others to participate in the conversation. When she received a dissenting opinion, she should have continued the discussion within the forum where it originated. Instead, she went on a mission to completely ruin the guy’s reputation & credibility outside that forum.
It doesn’t matter what I think of David’s opinions on parenting. I support the right to share dissenting opinions within the framework of the social media conversation without fear of internet bullying–because really, that’s what this is. So in the interest of repairing his personal branding: I support you David Dellifield, the one from Ava, Ohio.
@Julie The fact that parenting is hard is not the issue. Parenting IS hard, and you DO need to vent, and you have your friends to do that. If your friend said something like that, would you harass them at work, or harass their family? No. If she would have ranted at him over twitter, thats fine. No actual stalking is involved.
Also, she has a NANNY. We work alot, and I would love to spend a WHOLE day with my kid, as would my husband. But we can’t. She’s lucky for that oppurtunity.
If she DIDN’T stalk the guy, I’d totally agree with you. But what she did was against the law, she even threatened to harass him at work again.
And also, Penny the Nut Job can say whatever she wants on her blog, but he can’t tell her that she’s a bad mom on a VERY public twitter? Bitch be crazy.
My fear is that some of her readers will actually follow her terrible career and parenting advice. In both arenas, she acts like a brat. As for David Dellifield, I hope he isn’t too bothered by being stalked and bullied…my sympathies are totally with him.